EPI Television Ad in Kentucky Compares Obama’s False Claims on Minimum Wage to Broken Promises on Health Care

  • Publication Date: September 2014

  • Topics: Minimum Wage

Washington, D.C. – Today the Employment Policies Institute (EPI) is announcing a television commercial airing in the Louisville metropolitan area in Kentucky that compares President Obama’s misleading claim that a higher minimum wage doesn’t cost jobs to his broken health care reform promise: “If you like your health care plan, you can keep it.”

The ad points to a report from nonpartisan government economists at the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) who estimate that up to a million jobs could disappear if the federal minimum wage is raised to $10.10 per hour.

The ad begins with President Obama’s infamous broken health care promise, then shows him saying more recently: “There is no solid evidence that a higher minimum wage costs jobs.” The voiceover that follows explains: “But government economists predict that a minimum wage hike will cost as many as one million jobs. Kentucky can’t afford another broken promise.”

View the television commercial here.

“In light of past broken promises, Kentuckians should think twice before believing the President and other politicians who say that a $10.10 minimum wage won’t cost jobs,” said Michael Saltsman, EPI’s research director. “Nonpartisan government economists predict that up to one million jobs will be lost with the President’s minimum wage proposal–suggesting that there are better and less harmful ways to reduce poverty.”