U.S. Labor Secretary Tom Perez called out New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) Thursday for saying that he was “tired” of the debate over raising the minimum wage.
“Chris Christie’s got his head in the sand if he’s getting tired about the minimum wage,” Perez said at a Bloomberg News event in Washington.
“I’ve met with minimum-wage workers in New Jersey,” he added, as quoted by Bloomberg. “I’ve met with folks who — the only raise they got, they’re baggage handlers at Newark Airport, and the only raise they got was when the voters increased the minimum wage.”
Speaking Tuesday at the Chamber of Commerce, Christie said that American parents aspired to opportunities for their children to make more money and achieve greater success. He said those aspirations didn’t have to do with a “higher minimum wage.”
Perez said at the Bloomberg event that it was embarrassing that the United States ranked third lowest among the 34 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development member nations in terms of the federal wage floor.
“I mean, we suck. We really do,” he said, as quoted by Bloomberg.
The Obama administration supports legislation to raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour from its current level of $7.25 an hour.
