Scott Bessent Confirms Trump Will NOT Raise the Minimum Wage – Just Give Handouts to Billionaires
January 16, 2025
In response to Donald Trump’s Treasury Secretary nominee Scott Bessent confirming the Trump administration will not work to raise the minimum wage, DNC Rapid Response Director Alex Floyd released the following statement:
“Donald Trump and Scott Bessent will give tax handouts to billionaires but oppose raising wages for the poorest Americans. Trump and his billionaire Cabinet have their priorities backwards. Instead of focusing on lower costs and higher wages, they’re only trying to line their own pockets while breaking promises to working families.”
NEW: Donald Trump’s Treasury Secretary nominee Scott Bessent confirmed he does not support raising the federal minimum wage – which has not been raised since 2009.
Sen. Bernie Sanders: “Will you work with those of us who want to raise the federal minimum wage to a living wage to take millions of Americans out of poverty?”
Scott Bessent: “I believe that the minimum wage is more of a statewide and regional issue.”
Sen: Sanders: “So you don’t think we should change the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour?”
Scott Bessent: “No, sir.”
REMINDER: Trump’s tax scam gave massive handouts to the ultra-wealthy at the expense of working families and created new incentives for companies to ship jobs overseas.
Forbes: “Trump Tax Cuts Helped Billionaires Pay Less Taxes Than The Working Class In 2018”
Washington Post: “For the first time in history, U.S. billionaires paid a lower tax rate than the working class last year”
CBS News: “Two years after Trump tax cuts, middle-class Americans are falling behind”
Washington Post Analysis: “One of President Donald Trump’s lesser-known but profoundly damaging legacies will be the explosive rise in the national debt that occurred on his watch. The financial burden that he’s inflicted on our government will wreak havoc for decades, saddling our kids and grandkids with debt. The national debt has risen by almost $7.8 trillion during Trump’s time in office. …
“The growth in the annual deficit under Trump ranks as the third-biggest increase, relative to the size of the economy, of any U.S. presidential administration, according to a calculation by Eugene Steuerle, co-founder of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center.”
Washington Post: “Trump promised ‘America First’ would keep jobs here. But the tax plan might push them overseas.”
Trump owns the worst jobs record in modern American history.
Fortune: “Trump to leave office with the worst jobs record since Herbert Hoover”
Washington Post: “President Trump took office at the crest of the longest economic expansion in U.S. history. He leaves presiding over the worst labor market in modern U.S. history, as an already-sputtering economic recovery has turned negative.”
Bloomberg: “Trump’s Jobs Record Fell Short of Promises Even Before the Virus”
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