CNN "Newsroom" - Transcript Interview with Jimmy Gomez
Interview
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Democratic Representative of California Jimmy Gomez is with me now. Congressman Gomez, nice to have you on, sir, welcome.
REP. JIMMY GOMEZ (D-CA): Thank you for having me.
BALDWIN: So, full House vote tomorrow. It's a big day. At this point not a single House Republican has signaled support for this bill. Obviously sinking the president's hopes for a bipartisan agreement. Is there any part of you that's worried that this bill goes too far and that it could hurt your party politically?
GOMEZ: Not at all. I'm not concerned about that one bit. And the reason why is that the American people are struggling. They're still hurting. My district has one of the highest infection rates in the country. It also has one of the highest employments. People are struggling to make ends meet. So this is something that they desperately want.
They want to make sure that they have additional weeks of unemployment, direct stimulus checks, making sure that they actually have access to COVID vaccine. So this is a big deal.
And no bill is perfect. I will say that straight up. No bill is perfect. But I think that this is a good bill and we've got to pass it tomorrow and make sure it gets implemented as soon as possible.
[15:50:00]
BALDWIN: What about the potential imperfection though in the fact that the federal minimum wage hike is included in this COVID-19 relief bill, you know, wanting to raise it to $15 an hour.
You know, you don't even have support from everyone in your own party. Why not take that piece of it out, you know, and then you talk about your constituents who so badly need this money and this help, get the stimulus bill through.
GOMEZ: As someone who actually worked minimum wage jobs for early in my life, I graduated from high school and wasn't going to college and I worked at Subway and Target. I worked from not 9:00 to 5:00, I worked from 5:00 in the afternoon to 9:00 the next day. First, I worked at Subway from 5:00 to 10:30 and then from midnight to 9:00 in the morning I worked at Target.
I was getting paid $5.50 an hour at Subway and $6.10 an hour at Target. And after like four or five months living at home trying to save every penny, I saved like $800.
So it is not just having a job that maters, it is having a good paying job that matters. And increasing the minimum wage will get that money up. So that people actually can make ends meet a little easier.
I know there is concerns, but California, we passed an increase in the minimum wage. We scaled it up. We made sure that it was evened out. You know what? I think it is still doable. I want to make sure that it is included and that is --
BALDWIN: Hang on, hang one, Congressman, let me just jump in. Because listen and I hear you and what privileged perches we both sit to have a conversation about upping the minimum wage. Let me just say that. But you've seen the CBO reporting, right. The CBO says, it's a matter does the good outweigh the bad. The CBO says that a rise in the minimum wage up to $15 would actually ultimately lead to the loss of 1.4 million jobs by 2025. Your response.
GOMEZ: My point is, if you're working three to four jobs a week, every single hour to make ends meet, is that worth it? Right.
My parents -- I was never taken care of when my parents were working four jobs a week to make ends meet because they were always gone. So paying people a higher wage, a livable wage is something that has so many profound benefits when it comes to the family, when it comes to the stress, when it comes to just the overall disposition of people in our communities.
So I believe it is completely worth it in order to raise the minimum wage. And oftentimes those job losses are replaced in the medium and long-term and that's what we saw in California. People say that the sky was going to fall in and that did not happen. What happened is that people can work less jobs in order to make ends meet for their families.
BALDWIN: Appreciate all of your hard work and it sounds like your family's hard work to get you where you are. Congressman Jimmy Gomez, thank you. And listen, we'll watching to see how this vote goes down in the House tomorrow. Appreciate you sir.
GOMEZ: Thank you.
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