JCN Calls Out Rep. Khanna for Dismissing Small Businesses with CA Billboard

Washington, D.C. (March 3, 2021)—Today, the Job Creators Network (JCN) placed a billboard less than a mile from the district office of Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) calling him out for dismissing the concerns small business owners have around raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has estimated the policy could cost the country up-to 2.7 million jobs—economic strain that would have an outsized impact on the small business community.

When asked about the impact a $15 minimum wage would have on small businesses during a CNN segment, Rep. Khanna responded in part by saying, “We don’t want low-wage businesses…I don’t want small businesses that are underpaying employees.” Khanna may not care about Main Street businesses, but the tens of millions of Americans they employ do. Watch the full television interview at SmallBusinessesAgainstRo.com.

The billboard, which is intended to be sung to the children’s tune of Row, Row, Row Your Boat, reads “Ro Ro Ro Your Small Business Jobs Gently Off a Cliff” and displays Rep. Khanna rowing a boat off a waterfall. The ad continues with, “Tell Rep. Ro Khanna to support USA’s small businesses, not strangle them all with a $15 minimum wage.” View the billboard here or below:

Alfredo Ortiz, JCN President and CEO, released the following statement:

“Main Street small businesses are the backbone of the U.S. economy and will be the economic drivers that help the country fully recover from the coronavirus pandemic. Simply dismissing their valid concerns about the consequences of more than doubling the federal minimum wage shows just how out-of-touch Rep. Khanna is with Main Street. Artificially hiking labor costs for small businesses would be a harmful policy pre-pandemic, but should be a nonstarter now. Rep. Khanna and his friends in Silicon Valley should be able to wrap their heads around that idea. What works in California won’t work everywhere.”