Americans love the minimum wage, unless you tell them the truth about it

The below is based off the monologue from the latest episode of The Wonderful World of Stu. Watch the whole episode HERE.

You may not know this about me, but my world hasn't always been so wonderful.

You see, I used to make minimum wage. Oh, the dreaded minimum wage! The memories…they hurt. The employment, cash, and unlimited access to fries still gives me nightmares. Yes, was once was employed by McDonald's and they paid me the federally mandated minimum. And that is a travesty and a sham and a mockery - its a traveshamockery.

Why? Because I most certainly deserved much, much less.

I was pretty much horrible at my job, unless my job was thievery of McNuggets.  I eventually was fired for skipping work on two consecutive weeks, one to play wiffleball and two to go trick or treating with two hot girls from my class.

By the way, I got lucky.  Tons of candy that night.  I mean neither of the girls would look at me, but I scored three full size milky ways.  Boom.

So was life on minimum wage really so terrible? If you listen to the media and either political party, you would think so.

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"No one who works full time in America should have to live in poverty.  Join the fight to raise the minimum wage." You send nonsense like that when you see it on social networks, and we get anti-social, this time on the minimum wage debate.

Politicians talk about the minimum wage because voters heart the minimum wage. A Gallup poll found that 76% say they would vote for a law to for raise it.

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That's a whopping three quarters of the population in agreement! I understand why. If you're not making minimum wage, you feel like its mean not to raise it.  And if McDonald’s told my 16-year-old self that they were raising my pay, I would have been psyched. And that's probably how most people who make minimum wage would react when they see this plastered all over the White House website:

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Let's take a step back for a second and actually look at who is working for minimum wage.

Let’s take 100 fries represent the workforce in America.  How many of them actually make the minimum wage? One.  Just one.

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"One percent of the us labor force earns the minimum wage." All these evil capitalist businesses out there required only to pay their peasant workers minimum wage and yet only one percent of them actually do it.  Doesn't that crush the boogeyman of the evil capitalist right off the bat?

Remember, the issue the White House says is so pressing is people working full time, trying to support a household.  Well, of that one percent, teenagers make up the largest age group.

In fact, "most minimum wage workers are under 25." 55% of minimum wage workers are under the age of 25.   Ok, so we've established it's mostly kids making minimum wage.  I say kids because they're all on mommy and daddy's health insurance.   But surely they're at least full time like the president said, right?

"Less than one-third work full-time." Only 32% of minimum wage workers work full time.  This is how progressives fight battles by the way. They look at an issue this big, like a pile of 100 fries, and only tell you about this part of it 1/3rd of one fry, but according to the president, these full time minimum wage earners are living in poverty-and that's why he wants to raise the wage.

Yeah, about that. You see, a full time minimum wage worker in 2014 makes $3,410 dollars more than the federal poverty limit.  So, depending on his family size, a full time minimum wage worker could take as much as 11 weeks of unpaid vacation and still clear the poverty line. He might not make the kind of cash Obama and his friends make, but someone should tell the president to look at their own numbers before running his mouth.

So why is this administration obsessed with raising the wages of a fraction of 1% of the country that is already living above the poverty line?

Do you remember the State of the Union? Remember how happy AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka was. Why was he so happy?

Labor unions, like Trumka's AFL-CIO, universally throw their support behind proposals to hike the minimum wage.  But why?  Union workers don’t make minimum wage.  Well, some unions peg their base-line wages to the minimum wage. The United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union explained that this is a commonplace practice.

"Often times, union contracts are triggered to implement wage hikes in the case of minimum wage increases…such increases  are one of the many advantages of being a union member."

You see what I'm getting at here, don't you?

A hike in the minimum wage isn't just a hike in the minimum wage. It’s a hike in the union wage.  But, the progressive union slush fund giveaway act has a terrible ring to it- so minimum wage it is.

Higher minimum wage means higher union wages, higher union dues, more money to spend on Democratic campaigns. A higher minimum wage also means more job security for union members. The increase restricts businesses from hiring lower skilled workers who would gladly accept a lower wage in exchange for experience.  And that same principle applies to every workplace when it comes to raising the minimum wage artificially. What does that mean for unemployment? A study called "effects of the minimum wage on employment dynamics" from Texas A&M University found that: "a ten percent increase to the minimum wage results in a reduction of approximately one-quarter of the net job growth rate."

The President is currently pushing not a 10 percent increase, but a 40 percent increase in the minimum wage. Progressives have always done that. What was their goal?  Unemployment and of course, eugenics.

Sidney Webb, English economist and Co-Founder of the Fabian Society in the early 1900s, believed that establishing a minimum wage above the value of "the unemployables" as he called them, would lock them out of the market thus eliminating them as a class.

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 “Of all ways of dealing with these unfortunate parasites the most ruinous to the community is to allow them unrestrainedly to compete as wage earners." – Sidney Webb

Many in America shared this belief as well. Around the same time, a Princeton economist said this:  "It is much better to enact a minimum-wage law even if it deprives these unfortunates of work, better that the state should support the inefficient wholly and prevent the multiplication of the breed than subsidize incompetence and unthrift, enabling them to bring forth more of their kind."

Who was that Princeton economist? Royal Meeker, U.S. Commissioner of Labor, under Woodrow Wilson.

Remember in the beginning we showed the poll that said most Americans support an increase in minimum wage? 75%.  A really popular policy.

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What happens when you ask Americans if they favored minimum wage if it caused some employers to lay off workers.

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Favor: 37%. Oppose? 56%.

Most Americans would oppose raising the minimum wage. There is disagreement on how many jobs would be lost, but economists generally agree- if you raise the minimum wage, some jobs will be lost.  But the American people never hear that.  As soon as they do, they completely turn on this horrible policy, one with an ugly past, and an incredibly corrupt present.

To review: 1) Americans love the minimum wage, unless you tell them the truth about it.  2) Minimum wage has a past that could make a decent horror film. 3) Unions want increases in minimum wage because it means more cash for them, and more campaign cash for Democrats.

What an adorable circle of corruption.  Give me more fries.

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The West is dying—Will we let enemies write our ending?

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The blood of martyrs, prophets, poets, and soldiers built our civilization. Their sacrifice demands courage in the present to preserve it.

Lamentations asks, “Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by?”

That question has been weighing on me heavily. Not just as a broadcaster, but as a citizen, a father, a husband, a believer. It is a question that every person who cares about this nation, this culture, and this civilization must confront: Is all of this worth saving?

We have squandered this inheritance. We forgot who we were — and our enemies are eager to write our ending.

Western civilization — a project born in Judea, refined in Athens, tested in Rome, reawakened in Wittenberg, and baptized again on the shores of Plymouth Rock — is a gift. We didn’t earn it. We didn’t purchase it. We were handed it. And now, we must ask ourselves: Do we even want it?

Across Europe, streets are restless. Not merely with protests, but with ancient, festering hatred — the kind that once marched under swastikas and fueled ovens. Today, it marches under banners of peace while chanting calls for genocide. Violence and division crack societies open. Here in America, it’s left against right, flesh against spirit, neighbor against neighbor.

Truth struggles to find a home. Even the church is slumbering — or worse, collaborating.

Our society tells us that everything must be reset: tradition, marriage, gender, faith, even love. The only sin left is believing in absolute truth. Screens replace Scripture. Entertainment replaces education. Pleasure replaces purpose. Our children are confused, medicated, addicted, fatherless, suicidal. Universities mock virtue. Congress is indifferent. Media programs rather than informs. Schools recondition rather than educate.

Is this worth saving? If not, we should stop fighting and throw up our hands. But if it is, then we must act — and we must act now.

The West: An idea worth saving

What is the West? It’s not a location, race, flag, or a particular constitution. The West is an idea — an idea that man is made in the image of God, that liberty comes from responsibility, not government; that truth exists; that evil exists; and that courage is required every day. The West teaches that education, reason, and revelation walk hand in hand. Beauty matters. Kindness matters. Empathy matters. Sacrifice is holy. Justice is blind. Mercy is near.

We have squandered this inheritance. We forgot who we were — and our enemies are eager to write our ending.

If not now, when? If not us, who? If this is worth saving, we must know why. Western civilization is worth dying for, worth living for, worth defending. It was built on the blood of martyrs, prophets, poets, pilgrims, moms, dads, and soldiers. They did not die for markets, pronouns, surveillance, or currency. They died for something higher, something bigger.

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Yet hope remains. Resurrection is real — not only in the tomb outside Jerusalem, but in the bones of any individual or group that returns to truth, honor, and God. It is never too late to return to family, community, accountability, and responsibility.

Pick up your torch

We were chosen for this time. We were made for a moment like this. The events unfolding in Europe and South Korea, the unrest and moral collapse, will all come down to us. Somewhere inside, we know we were called to carry this fire.

We are not called to win. We are called to stand. To hold the torch. To ask ourselves, every day: Is it worth standing? Is it worth saving?

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. Pick up your torch. If you choose to carry it, buckle up. The work is only beginning.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Stop coasting: How self-education can save America’s future

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Coasting through life is no longer an option. Charlie Kirk’s pursuit of knowledge challenges all of us to learn, act, and grow every day.

Last year, my wife and I made a commitment: to stop coasting, to learn something new every day, and to grow — not just spiritually, but intellectually. Charlie Kirk’s tragic death crystallized that resolve. It forced a hard look in the mirror, revealing how much I had coasted in both my spiritual and educational life. Coasting implies going downhill. You can’t coast uphill.

Last night, my wife and I re-engaged. We enrolled in Hillsdale College’s free online courses, inspired by the fact that Charlie had done the same. He had quietly completed around 30 courses before I even knew, mastering the classics, civics, and the foundations of liberty. Watching his relentless pursuit of knowledge reminded me that growth never stops, no matter your age.

The path forward must be reclaiming education, agency, and the power to shape our minds and futures.

This lesson is particularly urgent for two groups: young adults stepping into the world and those who may have settled into complacency. Learning is life. Stop learning, and you start dying. To young adults, especially, the college promise has become a trap. Twelve years of K-12 education now leave graduates unprepared for life. Only 35% of seniors are proficient in reading, and just 22% in math. They are asked to bet $100,000 or more for four years of college that will often leave them underemployed and deeply indebted.

Degrees in many “new” fields now carry negative returns. Parents who have already sacrificed for public education find themselves on the hook again, paying for a system that often fails to deliver.

This is one of the reasons why Charlie often described college as a “scam.” Debt accumulates, wages are not what students were promised, doors remain closed, and many are tempted to throw more time and money after a system that won’t yield results. Graduate school, in many cases, compounds the problem. The education system has become a factory of despair, teaching cynicism rather than knowledge and virtue.

Reclaiming educational agency

Yet the solution is not radical revolt against education — it is empowerment to reclaim agency over one’s education. Independent learning, self-guided study, and disciplined curiosity are the modern “Napster moment.” Just as Napster broke the old record industry by digitizing music, the internet has placed knowledge directly in the hands of the individual. Artists like Taylor Swift now thrive outside traditional gatekeepers. Likewise, students and lifelong learners can reclaim intellectual freedom outside of the ivory towers.

Each individual possesses the ability to think, create, and act. This is the power God grants to every human being. Knowledge, faith, and personal responsibility are inseparable. Learning is not a commodity to buy with tuition; it is a birthright to claim with effort.

David Butow / Contributor | Getty Images

Charlie Kirk’s life reminds us that self-education is an act of defiance and empowerment. In his pursuit of knowledge, in his engagement with civics and philosophy, he exemplified the principle that liberty depends on informed, capable citizens. We honor him best by taking up that mantle — by learning relentlessly, thinking critically, and refusing to surrender our minds to a system that profits from ignorance.

The path forward must be reclaiming education, agency, and the power to shape our minds and futures. Every day, seek to grow, create, and act. Charlie showed the way. It is now our responsibility to follow.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Glenn Beck joins TPUSA tour to honor Charlie Kirk

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If they thought the murder of Charlie Kirk would scare us into silence, they were wrong!

If anything, Turning Point will hit the road louder than ever. On Monday, September 22, less than two weeks after the assassination, Charlie's friends united under the Turning Point USA banner to carry his torch and honor his legacy by doing what he did best: bringing honest and truthful debate to Universities across the nation.

Naturally, Glenn has rallied to the cause and has accepted an invitation to join the TPUSA tour at the University of North Dakota on October 9th.

Want to join Glenn at the University of North Dakota to honor Charlie Kirk and keep his mission alive? Click HERE to sign up or find more information.

Glenn's daughter honors Charlie Kirk with emotional tribute song

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On September 17th, Glenn commemorated his late friend Charlie Kirk by hosting The Charlie Kirk Show Podcast, where he celebrated and remembered the life of a remarkable young man.

During the broadcast, Glenn shared an emotional new song performed by his daughter, Cheyenne, who was standing only feet away from Charlie when he was assassinated. The song, titled "We Are One," has been dedicated to Charlie Kirk as a tribute and was written and co-performed by David Osmond, son of Alan Osmond, founding member of The Osmonds.

Glenn first asked David Osmond to write "We Are One" in 2018, as he predicted that dark days were on the horizon, but he never imagined that it would be sung by his daughter in honor of Charlie Kirk. The Lord works in mysterious ways; could there have been a more fitting song to honor such a brave man?

"We Are One" is available for download or listening on Spotify HERE