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Christie Mocks Minimum-Wage Workers' Struggle

His slam comes as President Obama is making a new push to raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10.

 His own bank account is well-padded — as is his rear end — but New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is “tired” of minimum-wage earners who plead for a bump in pay.

Christie, who along with his wife raked in $700,000 last year, ignited a firestorm Tuesday in a speech that critics say mocked the 16.5 million Americans working for minimum wage.

“I’m tired of hearing about the minimum wage. I really am,” the Republican governor — and possible presidential candidate in 2016 — said at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Legal Reform Summit in Washington, D.C.

“I don’t think there’s a mother or a father sitting around the kitchen table tonight in America saying, ‘You know, honey, if our son or daughter could just make a higher minimum wage, my God, all of our dreams would be realized,’ ” he said.

Christie, a guy who knows his way around a kitchen table, vetoed a bill in January 2013 that would have given New Jersey’s lowest paid workers a $1.25-an-hour pay hike — claiming it jeopardized the economic recovery of his state.

His slam comes as President Obama is making a new push to raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10.

Caroline Cournoyer is GOVERNING's senior web editor.
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