MSNBC All In With Chris Hayes, July 24, 2013
Excerpt:
CHRIS HAYES: Joining me now is Lew Prince, co-owner of Vintage Vinyl in St. Louis. He met with Pres. Obama along with other small business owners last year. Shanita Simon Toussaint, a shift supervisor at a KFC in Brooklyn, New York and Dorian Warren, an assistant professor at Columbia University and specialist in labor law. Great to have you all here.
Lew, the argument we hear coming from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce whenever minimum wage is on the table is, you`re going to destroy small business, and you run a small business. And what do you make of that argument?
LEW PRINCE, CO-OWNER OF VINTAGE VINYL: Well, the fact is, that small businesses in general pay higher wages anyway because we know about the relationship - our relationship with our employees is closer, and our employees’ relationship with the customers is closer, and that`s how you grow a business. At that meeting with President Obama --
HAYES: Stop that for one second. That`s an interesting idea. Why would you pay a higher wage than say a mass employer like KFC?
PRINCE: I want an employee who`s committed to the business, but also, feels like he has a stake that the paycheck he takes home at the end of the week is worth working for. It supports his family. Now, you were citing the statistics, if we were at the same minimum wage adjusted for inflation, what we had in 1968 we would be at $10.74. ...