Vice President J.D. Vance highlighted the benefits of raising the minimum wage during a Washington, D.C., speech.
While speaking at the American Dynamism Summit on Tuesday, Vance told the tech-savvy crowd that low labor costs stifle innovation.
"Cheap labor is fundamentally a crutch, and it's a crutch that inhibits innovation," he said. "I might even say that it's a drug that too many American firms got addicted to. Now, if you can make a product more cheaply, it's far too easy to do that rather than to innovate."
"Now, one of the debates you hear on the minimum wage, for instance, is that increases in the minimum wage force firms to automate," the vice president continued. "So a higher wage at McDonald's means more kiosks, and whatever your views on the wisdom of the minimum wage, I'm not going to comment on that here."
ALSO READ: The new guy in charge of USAID doesn't believe in foreign aid
"Companies innovating in the absence of cheap labor is a good thing."
As senator, Vance co-sponsor legislation that would raise the federal minimum wage. President Donald Trump, however, recently nixed Biden-era increases in the minimum wage for federal workers.
