Podcast host Joe Rogan has criticized the federal minimum wage.
Speaking with guest Bernie Sanders, the independent Vermont senator who caucuses with the Democrats, Rogan said the minimum wage in the U.S. is “ridiculous” and “disgusting.”
Employers have to pay workers the highest minimum wage of those designated by federal, state and local laws. States can apply their own minimum wages, but there is a federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, which has remained unchanged since 2009.
Why It Matters
A persistent fight to raise the minimum wage has been ongoing for the last decade or so, particularly in the absence of the federal rate changing. In April, the Raise the Wage Act of 2025 was introduced in Congress by Sanders and fellow Democrat Bobby Scott of Virginia. Another bill, introduced by Republican Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri and Democratic Senator Peter Welch of Vermont last week, seeks to double the current federal minimum wage to $15 per hour.
According to progressive think tank Economic Policy Institute, raising the federal minimum wage to $17 “by 2030 would impact 22,247,000 workers across the country, or 15 percent of the U.S. wage-earning workforce.” The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations said that had federal minimum wage “kept pace with workers’ productivity since 1968, the inflation-adjusted minimum wage would be $24 an hour.”
Joe Rogan looks on during UFC 316 at the Prudential Center on June 7, 2025, in Newark, New Jersey. Joe Rogan looks on during UFC 316 at the Prudential Center on June 7, 2025, in Newark, New Jersey. Elsa/GETTY
What To Know
Speaking from his podcast studio in Austin, Texas, Rogan said: “I think the minimum wage in this country is ridiculous. I mean, $7, what?”
He referenced a TikTok video he had seen regarding a man who paid $25 for a sandwich, which would mean a worker on the minimum wage would need to work “three and a half hours just to pay for a sandwich.”
“Imagine how insane that is,” Rogan said, with Sanders agreeing. “Like how do you eat? How do you eat dinner? How do you eat lunch?”
Sanders replied: “I have talked to people who make 10, 12 bucks an hour trying to raise a kid.”
Rogan continued: “Well the argument against that is, hey, these are entry-level jobs that are supposed to be for kids.”
Sanders responded, telling him “that’s factually incorrect. Of course that’s true to some degree.
Rogan replied: “But if you have grown adults that are working those jobs, now that becomes disgusting.”
Sanders went on to reference the Raise the Wage Act.
“We are trying to raise the minimum wage to $17 an hour,” he said.
Rogan said that was a “reasonable amount of money. It’s going to be difficult to live off $17 an hour, but at least that’s right. At least you can get a sandwich in under two hours of work.”
What People Are Saying
President Donald Trump, in an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press in December, that a $7.25 minimum wage was “a very low number,” and that there “is a level at which you can do it.”
The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, on its website: “The labor movement has long advocated that working people share in the wealth we help create and our incomes should rise as we become more productive. Increasing the federal minimum wage would be a positive step in rewriting the rules of our economy so that it benefits working people.”
The National Employment Law Project, which advocates for increasing minimum pay: “Low wages hurt all workers and are particularly harmful to Black workers and other workers of color—especially women—who make up a disproportionate share of workers who are severely underpaid.
“It’s time that elected lawmakers in Congress pass the Raise the Wage Act, to gradually raise the federal minimum wage to $17 an hour by 2028 and end the subminimum wage for tipped workers and disabled workers.”
What Happens Next
Both bills introduced in Congress have yet to be considered by the House and Senate.
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