Nick Hanauer
Nick Hanauer
Nick Hanaueris an American entrepreneur and venture capitalist living in Shoreline, Washington...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionBusinessman
CountryUnited States of America
country thinking conservative
I was more conservative when I was younger. But I don't think that I've moved left - I think the country has moved right.
jobs thinking two
Now one person doing the job of one and a half. So as an employer I can get two people to do the work of three, and think about what that does for profits.
class minimum-wage lows
The overtime threshold is to the middle class as the minimum wage is to low-wage workers.
simple fields administration
Raising the minimum wage is very efficient. Everybody's on the same playing field, it's a very simple rule, it doesn't require a lot of administration, you don't have to negotiate anything. It just is what it is.
class people helping
The most pro-business thing you can do is to help middle-class people thrive.
differences minimum-wage boards
Raising the minimum wage a lot across the board would make a big difference. It's not the only thing, but it's an indispensable part of solving the problem.
people threshold happens
Raising the overtime threshold - something that is about to happen. This is more complex so not as many people understand it, but it's equally consequential.
confused government people
Fast food workers are all the governor has power to enact. Your state legislature is held hostage by the same nitwits that hold hostage the federal [government]. People who have confused suffocating collectivism, which is bad, for a necessity to solve collective action problems, which is what all human endeavor is based on.
ideas wages employment
The idea that high wages equals low employment, it's absurd.
real care social
If you care about real change, deep structural change, that involves politics, and all politics is friction. It takes leadership, and the willingness to create that friction, that leads to social change.
feet long boat
The only reason to have a 300-foot-long boat is because they're bigger than 200-foot-long boats.
cutting thinking people
Raising the minimum wage allows business people to stop thinking about workers simply as costs to be cut and allows you to start thinking about workers as customers to be cultivated.
unemployment minimum-wage littles
But can we please stop insisting that if low-wage workers earn a little bit more, unemployment will skyrocket and the economy will collapse? There is no evidence for it. The most insidious thing about trickle-down economics is not the claim that if the rich get richer, everyone is better off. It is the claim made by those who oppose any increase in the minimum wage that if the poor get richer, that will be bad for the economy. This is nonsense.
years people pay
You can go back 150 years and literally find the same people saying the same thing in the same way. "If we have to pay you more, it will be bad for you." And that's because saying that is a much more polite way of saying, "I'm rich, you're poor, and I would prefer to keep it what way."