If any person knows the value of hard work, it’s Mike Rowe. The former “Dirty Jobs” star first gained popularity for going undercover at some of the country’s grittiest jobs. From cleaning up poop to swimming with sharks, Rowe has an appreciation for those who work hard and aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty.
The “Six Degrees” star Mike Rowe is weighing in on the topic of raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour. He recently spoke up about the debate and offered his opinion as it remains a hot button issue in politics.
“I want everybody who works hard and plays fair to prosper,” Rowe recently said to Fox Business. “I want everybody to be able to support themselves. But if you just pull the money out of midair you’re going to create other problems. There is a ladder of success that people climb and some of those jobs that are out there for seven, eight, nine dollars an hour. In my view, they’re simply not intended to be careers. They’re not intended to be full-time jobs. They’re rungs on a ladder.”
Mike Rowe on the Minimum Wage: ‘They’re Rungs on a Ladder’
“[Those jobs] are ways for people to get experience in the workforce doing a thing that might not necessarily pay you as much as you’d like, but nevertheless serves a real purpose,” he added.
Rowe also said that he’s worried about “unintended consequences” that could come with raising people’s wages. “I worry that the path to a skilled trade can be compromised when you offer an artificially high wage for, I hate the expression, but an unskilled job. So to me, the brightest line needs to be drawn between skilled and unskilled work. We need to encourage more people to learn a skill that’s actually in demand,” he said.
His new show, “Six Degrees with Mike Rowe,” premiered on Discovery Channel in January. The former “Dirty Jobs” star said that the series aims to prove how the world is more connected than we know. In the show, he also explores significant moments in American history and connects the dots with humor.
“In the same way ‘Dirty Jobs’ reached a lot of people because it dealt with something as universal as work, ‘Six Degrees,’ I think, has the same potential because it deals with our shared history,” he said.
“What we wanted to do was kind of shower you with a lot of information that hopefully would work as a portal and inspire people to go a little deeper,” he added.
