Nick Hanauer

law capitalism worker money customer employment absurd

"The fundamental law of capitalism is: when workers have more money, businesses have more customers, and need more workers. The idea that high wages equals low employment, it's absurd."

— Nick Hanauer

profit corporation worker food stamps common sense

"I think the idea that giant profitable corporations should pay their workers enough so that they don't need food stamps - since when is that left wing? How did that become "leftie?" That doesn't seem leftie to me. That seems common sense."

— Nick Hanauer

taxes rich wealth job creation drowning

"If it was true that lower taxes for the rich and more wealth to the wealthy lead to job creation, today we would be drowning in jobs."

— Nick Hanauer

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"The only reason to have a 300-foot-long boat is because they're bigger than 200-foot-long boats."

— Nick Hanauer

pro-business middle-class thrive

"The most pro-business thing you can do is to help middle-class people thrive."

— Nick Hanauer

minimum wage efficient 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."

— Nick Hanauer

conservative young left country right

"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."

— Nick Hanauer

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"If we don’t do something to fix the glaring inequities in this economy, the pitchforks are going to come for us. No society can sustain this kind of rising inequality. In fact, there is no example in human history where wealth accumulated like this and the pitchforks didn’t eventually come out. You show me a highly unequal society, and I will show you a police state. Or an uprising. There are no counterexamples. None. It’s not if, it’s when."

— Nick Hanauer