Cotton On Minimum Wage Proposal: ‘I’m Going To Vote For That Initiated Act’
by September 5, 2014 9:08 am 277 views
On Friday, GOP Senate hopeful Cong. Tom Cotton told radio talk show host Alice Stewart that he will support a ballot initiative in Arkansas to raise the minimum wage to $8.50 per hour by 2017.
“I’m going to vote for that initiated act as a citizen,” Cotton said on the morning program. “But as Arkansas’ next United States Senator, I’m going to make sure we have a healthy economy, not the kind of minimum wage economy that Barack Obama and Mark Pryor have created. The minimum wage should be a floor and a stepping stone to higher wage jobs, not a ceiling.”
Cotton’s opponent Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor endorsed the minimum wage proposal earlier this year. At the time, Cotton said he was studying the issue.
Both Cotton and Pryor have expressed opposition to a federal minimum wage hike proposal that would raise the wage to $10.10 per hour.
On Friday, Cotton cited a Congressional Budget Office proposal that said raising the federal minimum wage to $10.10 per hour could cost one million jobs. Cotton said there would be other concerns too.
“A near doubling of the minimum wage would lead to an increase in food prices,” he said. “Obviously that would be bad for Arkansas’ working families. It would also cost jobs.”
Cotton becomes the second high-profile Republican to endorse the state minimum wage proposal, which qualified for the November ballot earlier this week.
On Thursday night, GOP gubernatorial candidate Asa Hutchinson said he planned to vote for the ballot measure although he said he preferred it being raised through the state Legislature.
Hutchinson’s opponent Mike Ross announced his support for the state minimum wage proposal earlier this year.
Polling has shown that the minimum wage proposal in Arkansas is popular. In an April 2014 Talk Business & Politics-Hendrix College survey, 79% of likely Arkansas voters expressed support for the measure, while 17% were opposed.
The support was positive among all demographics, including a majority of support from Democrats, Independents and Republicans.