Rex Sinquefield thinks raising the minimum wage is an injustice to African-Americans on par with police shootings

A majority of Americans support raising the minimum wage. Kansas City just passed an increase to $13 an hour by 2020, and a similar ordinance is being reviewed on the other side of Missouri, in St. Louis. This is happening all across the country, of course, as more people understand the inherent injustice of billion-dollar corporations paying full-time workers wages that set them below the poverty level. 

Rex Sinquefield, Missouri’s reigning conservative puppetmaster, went on a radio program on St. Louis station KMOX today to talk about why raising the minimum wage is a bad idea. He referenced Milton Friedman twice. He also said the following: 

“When you impose a raise of the minimum wage, you are forcing people to discriminate against the least-skilled workers. That’s pretty awful, taking the most disadvantaged workers — the people who most need a job — and putting them out of job by pricing them out of the market. That’s not just bad economics, that’s cruel.”

OK, whatever. This is a man who thinks — still thinks! — the state of Kansas’ tax policy is brilliant.

Then Rex said this: 

“People are marching in the streets for all the alleged and sometimes real injustices against teenage African-Americans — but this [raising the minimum wage] is one of the greatest injustices of all.” 

You hear that, fast-food workers who make $7.35 an hour? You take to the streets when Michael Brown and Walter Scott get gunned down by cops, but you should be marching to protect those poverty wages. 

Listen here.