Reich: Policies to Help Poor Could Be Boon for Big Business
17th January 2014
Do tell.
Want to be a U.S. lawmaker considered friendly to big business? You should probably support raising the minimum wage and helping the unemployed, former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich said Thursday.
Turning conventional Washington wisdom on its head, Mr. Reich told a congressional panel that policies usually trumpeted by Democrats to help the poor could actually be a huge boon for big business.
“What is a business friendly strategy to create jobs? It’s to create customers,” he told the Joint Economic Committee. “Business executives and Wall Street traders are not job creators. The job creators are customers and if the vast middle class and the poor don’t have enough money in their pockets they can’t be customers.”