AOC gets a real job — for a day — and compares tipping jobs to ‘indentured servitude’

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) took a break from yelling about the world ending in 12 years and imagining futures where her Green New Deal has saved the planet to do some real work — at least for a day.

Ocasio-Cortez smiled for cameras and bartended in Jackson Heights on Friday. The congresswoman was previously a bartender in Manhattan’s Union Square before she took her seat in Congress.

(Screenshot: @AOC)

Ocasio-Cortez’s return to the world of bartending, which was little more than political theater, was done in support of a push by many Democrats for an increase in the minimum wage in every state to 15 dollars. Ocasio-Cortez also complained about tipping jobs and compared them to “indentured servitude” while cameras were on her.

“I was nervous that I may have lost my touch — still got it! That muscle memory doesn’t quit,” the congresswoman humbly tweeted after her day bartending.

She then added, “Now let’s pass #RaiseTheWage and get $15 an hour minimum for every worker in America.”

Check out the tweet and a video of Cortez making drinks below:

After working behind the bar, Ocasio-Cortez spoke with gathered press and workers and complained about employees needing to rely on tips to make a living.

“The federal tipped minimum wage is $2.13 an hour. That is unacceptable,” she said. “Any job that pays $2.13 an hour is not a job. It’s indentured servitude. All labor, all labor, has dignity and the way that we give labor dignity is by paying people the respect and the value that they are worth at minimum.”

She continued, “We have to make one fair wage and We have to raise the national minimum wage to $15 an hour — nothing less.”

The minimum wage in New York City is already 15 dollars an hour and tipped workers — such as bartenders and servers — make 10 dollars an hour if they work at what is considered a large business or nine dollars an hour if they work at what is considered a small business.

Many Democrats hoping to challenge President Donald Trump in 2020 have endorsed the idea of a 15 dollars minimum wage. Julián Castro, Bill de Blasio, Kamala Harris, John Hickenlooper, Amy Klobuchar, Beto O’Rourke, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren have all said they would pass legislation raising the minimum wage if they end up in the White House. The federal minimum wage is currently seven dollars and twenty five cents an hour.


Source: Fox News

For being only 29, it’s a surprise to see Ocasio-Cortez be so myopic in her thinking about the minimum wage. Millennials have actually challenged the very idea of hourly jobs through the many services that allow for partial or full-time self employment like Uber, Lift, Instacart, etc.

There will always be arguments for raising the minimum wage because of the very inflation that the federal government feeds year after year. However, all that sort of thinking does is hurt small businesses and discourage others from opening businesses. By moving into a more self-employed arena, some younger people have challenged the idea of hourly rates being needed at all. In New York City, many people who work for tips can make far more than those who work hourly because their income is often based on their willingness to work.

Lawmakers like Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) have argued against a federal minimum wage in the past and with so many Democrats clamoring for businesses to pay more and more money — while they also hand their profits to the government — it’s probably time more people start listening to thinkers like Paul rather than Ocasio-Cortez.

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