Fox Business host claims 'minimum wage destroys work ethic'

Another day, another dreadful take on the human condition from Fox News.

Charles Payne - host of Making Money on Fox Business - guested on Fox and Friends on Wednesday to respond to a tweet by Democratic rising star Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez regarding the minimum wage.

AOC had tweeted her outrage at the cost of a breakfast croissant at New York's LaGuardia Airport, comparing the extortionate $7 price tag to the $15 an hour salary paid to those on the bottom rung of the employment ladder.

The New York Post had responded to the freshman congresswoman with an editorial arguing that a person's wage was no way to judge their value as a human being.

Payne was invited on to Donald Trump's favourite morning show to pick over the argument.

An arch-capitalist, Payne was unsurprisingly against improving the quality of working people's lives.

"When you raise the minimum wage, the business has to raise the price of their products," he said. "Guess who gets hurt the most there? Poor households. Most poor households that I know have more than one person working on minimum wage. So I'd rather have two people making $13 an hour, instead of one making $15 an hour, because that's the realistic consequences."

"The bottom line," Payne continued, "Is, if you want to talk about people being disposable, her idea of a standard minimum wage snuffs out the ambitions of the person at this company who could excel."

Why would I excel if the person who is not working hard gets the same pay that I get?

In other words, being paid more makes you lazier and more complacent. What a depressingly pessimistic view of human nature.

Payne went on to argue that customers visiting the Big Apple's restaurants and cafes are now being discouraged from tipping waiters and waitresses or are seeing their gratuities pooled and shared among staff, rather than being given to the specific server who looked after them.

"If someone gives you excellent service, they should be rewarded," Payne complained. "All you're doing is you're rewarding minimal effort."

AOC was herself working as a bartender less than a year ago - President Trump even joked about the fact at a Republican dinner on Tuesday night to belittle her ever-growing influence - and Payne suggested (incorrectly) the business she used to work for had been forced to close as a result of paying higher wages.

Prior to upsetting the odds and beating 10-term congressman Joe Crowley last year, Ocasio-Cortez worked at Flats Fix, a Mexican restaurant near Union Square.

That restaurant is very much still open and proud of its association with the Representative for New York's 14th Congressional District.

More: Fox and Friends graphic claims that Trump is cutting aid to '3 Mexican countries'