Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, who is running for re-election, said he wanted people to have jobs "that pay two or three times the minimum wage."
"The way you do that is not" is by having the state set "an arbitrary amount," the
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.
Walker's challenger, Democrat Mary Burke, said she would raise the minimum wage in stages to $10.10 an hour from the current federal minimum of $7.25.
The governor told the Sentinel's editorial board that he would not repeal the minimum wage.
"But I don't think it serves a purpose because we're debating then about what the lowest levels are at. I want people to make … two or three times that."
Burke said a higher minimum wage made "common sense" so that people working full-time could feel proud of supporting themselves "without government assistance," the Sentinel reported.
Union leader Stephanie Bloomingdale of the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO agreed with Burke, saying, "Now is the time to raise the minimum wage so that people who get up and go to work every day can have a decent standard of living," according to the Sentinel.
Walker has said that Wisconsin does not suffer from a "jobs problem" so much as a "work problem" related to a skills gap in which there are not enough trained workers to fill existing jobs in the state.
"Mary Burke is distorting my comments on jobs," Walker said in a campaign commercial. "It's no wonder. The tax-and-spend policies she supports drove out good-paying manufacturing jobs in Wisconsin," the Sentinel reported.
The two candidates are set to face off in a second and final debate on
Milwaukee Public Television on Friday at 8 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.
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