On Wednesday, President Barack Obama traveled to New Britain, Connecticut, where he made his case for a national increase of the minimum wage to $10.10 for all workers. Towards the end of his speech there, the president toyed with the idea of using some reverse psychology on his Republican opponents. “Maybe I should say I oppose raising the minimum wage,” he said. Then, “they’d be for it.”
Obama cited statistics that say nearly 75% of all Americans and 50% of Republicans support raising the minimum wage, but somehow Republicans in Congress almost uniformly oppose it. “Now, I don’t know if that’s because I proposed it,” he joked.
“Maybe I should say I oppose raising the minimum wage,” Obama said. “They’d be for it, that’s possible.”
The president went on to say that his minimum wage hike proposal would lift wages for 200,000 people in Connecticut, one million New Englanders and 28 million Americans, without any new taxes or government spending.
Watch video below, via CNN:
[photo via screengrab]
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