title:  Fast Food CEO CONFIRMS That Minimum Wage Hikes Are GOOD For Business (AUDIO)
text: A California fast-food CEO has seen the light, and now supports minimum wage increases after seeing for himself that they are good for business.Wetzel s Pretzels  CEO, Bill Phelps, says he and his investors were concerned that minimum wage hikes passed by California lawmakers in 2014, and again in 2016, would negatively affect his business.Apparently, Republican fear mongering over the minimum wage got to him like it gets to many other business owners who actually believe Republicans are telling the truth.For years, Republicans have opposed raising the minimum wage because they claim doing so hurts businesses. They say it will force businesses to raise prices or lay off workers, but that s just simply not the case.In reality, the exact opposite happened. As it turns out, the minimum wage hike created a boom in business because workers had more money in their pockets to spend on things like pretzels. I was shocked,  Phelps told KQED during an interview about how the law has impacted business owners.  I was stunned by the business. In fact, Wetzel s Pretzels saw their profits increase significantly after each minimum wage increase, which now stands at $10.50 an hour in California. And the positive effect is being witnessed by franchise managers like Mike Jacobs. My overall sales were something like 15 percent ahead after the first minimum wage bump, and now they re about 12 percent ahead this year,  Jacobs said.  It isn t because I m such a great manager or smart guy, but the buying public has more money in their pocket. Here s the interview via KQED.But Donald Trump, his Labor Secretary pick Andrew Puzder, and the Republican-controlled Congress threaten all of that success.Trump has repeatedly flip-flopped when it comes to the minimum wage. He has called for it to be eliminated at the federal level, which would let Republicans drastically lower wages in states they control. He has said that he supports raising the minimum wage to $10 an hour, which would nearly match California. But Trump s choice of fast-food CEO Andrew Puzder as Labor Secretary makes it clear that he opposes minimum wage hikes. Trump and Puzder both wrongly believe that raising wages for American workers makes us unable to compete with foreign businesses.But that s a load of bullshit that corporate vultures like Trump spew as an excuse to manufacture their products in China and Mexico instead of paying American workers a fair wage to manufacture the products in the United States.The fact is that raising the minimum wage helps more people than it harms, but Puzder opposes the minimum wage and will be in a position to viciously attack it along with overtime pay rules and rules that require breaks for workers.So while business is booming in California because lawmakers there understand that paying workers more increases the amount of money people will pump back into the economy, Trump and Puzder will be working with Republicans to sabotage the economy by killing the minimum wage laws that made us an economic powerhouse in the first place.Featured image via Twitter 