He’s the controversial king of podcasting, a multimillionaire media mogul who constructed an empire on a cocktail of MMA, psychedelic evangelism, and institutional skepticism. Whereas Joe Rogan has just lately drawn criticism from the left for his contrarian views, in a second that feels each inevitable and completely weird, he might have simply change into the nation’s only advocate for elevating the minimal wage.
The catalyst wasn’t a dense financial report or a progressive coverage paper. It was a viral TikTok video a couple of single, outrageously costly sandwich.
The scene unfolded throughout a June 24 episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, the place Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) returned for one more considered one of his now-classic deep dives into the state of America. Their dialogue, nevertheless, went far past politics, pertaining to the very way forward for human labor.
Earlier than the dialog turned to wages, it was grounded in a urgent, trendy nervousness: the specter of AI and automation changing human employees. Rogan and Sanders mentioned a future the place jobs at manufacturing giants like Ford and GM might be rendered out of date by robotics, as each carmakers closely put money into automation to streamline manufacturing. Their dialogue is well timed, as the talk over job displacement intensifies. Whereas main companies roll out cost-cutting tech, labor advocates are asking an important query: what occurs to the employees?
Sanders argued that society faces a important selection. Moderately than merely dismissing hundreds of thousands of employees as expertise advances, he proposed a elementary shift in our strategy to labor: decreasing the work week. The senator prompt {that a} 32-hour week might enable extra folks to stay employed, sharing the advantages of automation somewhat than changing into its victims. This proposal comes as a recent U.N. study highlights the dimensions of the difficulty, discovering that one in 4 jobs worldwide is probably uncovered to generative synthetic intelligence (GenAI).
This broader nervousness in regards to the worth of human labor in an more and more automated world set the stage for the episode’s most viral second. The dialog pivoted from the summary risk of AI to the speedy, tangible wrestle of employees as we speak.
What adopted was a potent rant in regards to the absurdity of the federal minimal wage from a person who can simply afford any sandwich he desires. But, confronted with the stark math of working hours versus the price of lunch, Rogan discovered himself making Sanders’s core argument with extra uncooked, everyman ardour than the senator himself.
“I believe the minimal wage on this nation is ridiculous. I imply, it’s $7, what?” Rogan stated in disbelief. “It’s insane. How do you reside off $7? You go to Jimmy John’s, you get a sub. How a lot is a sub? Like an enormous sub at Jimmy John’s?”
He continued, referencing a TikTok video: “Some man did a video the place he’s like, ‘They’re making an attempt to say that minimal wage $15 is an excessive amount of.’ I believe he had a sub that he purchased for 25 bucks. So think about that’s your lunch. So think about it’s important to work three and a half hours simply to pay for a sandwich. Think about how insane that’s.”
Rogan added, “That’s insane. Like, how do you eat? And the way do you eat dinner? How do you eat lunch, breakfast?”
Sanders: “I’ve talked to individuals who make 10, 12 bucks an hour making an attempt to boost a child.”
Rogan: “Jesus. Properly, the argument in opposition to that’s, ‘Hey, these are entry-level jobs which might be imagined to be for teenagers.’”
Sanders: “No. And that’s factually—yeah, after all, it’s true to a point…”
Rogan: “To a point, however if in case you have grown adults which might be working these jobs, now it turns into disgusting.”
Sanders: “That’s proper, simply precisely! Particularly whenever you’re coping with an infinite company.”
Rogan: “Proper!”
Sanders: “So we put a variety of strain, you understand, we are attempting to boost the minimal wage, federal minimal wage, to 17 bucks.”
Rogan: “That’s an inexpensive amount of cash. You already know, I imply, it’s nonetheless—it’s gonna be actual tough to stay off of 17 bucks an hour, however at the least…”
Sanders: “That’s proper.”
Rogan: “At the very least you may get a sandwich in below two hours’ value of labor.”
Rogan didn’t specify which video precisely, however there are numerous videos on TikTok of individuals ranting about $25 subs. Sub costs differ relying on the toppings, and the federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour.
The change is outstanding not only for the purpose being made—Sanders has delivered this message for many years—however for the way Rogan arrived at it. After briefly entertaining the traditional “jobs for teenagers” counterargument, he instantly dismissed it with palpable revulsion, calling the fact of adults in these positions “disgusting.”
His frustration, stripped of political jargon, is probably going extra resonant for his large viewers than any speech on the Senate ground. By endorsing Sanders’s proposed $17 minimal wage as “affordable,” Rogan grounded the whole debate in a visceral, comprehensible metric: what number of hours of your life it ought to price to purchase lunch.
For Sanders, who’s campaigning in opposition to company energy, he couldn’t have discovered a greater ally. Rogan is likely one of the most influential voices amongst males, and younger males particularly, making this unlikely alignment a probably vital second within the public dialog about financial equity in America.
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