What Do Local Venture Capitalist Nick Hanauer and Local Socialist Alternative Candidate Kshama Sawant Have in Common?

They both support raising the minimum wage to $15.00 an hour. According to Nick Hanauer:

Traditionally, arguments for big minimum-wage increases come from labor unions and advocates for the poor. I make the case as a businessman and entrepreneur who sees our millions of low-paid workers as customers to be cultivated and not as costs to be cut. ... Raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour would inject about $450 billion into the economy each year. That would give more purchasing power to millions of poor and lower-middle-class Americans, and would stimulate buying, production and hiring.

Hanauer makes a strong economic case from the capitalist perspective. Read the whole thing.

As for the socialist perspective, I know from our conversations that Kshama Sawant, who is challenging Richard Conlin for city council, would prefer a $21.72 an hour minimum wage—the figure Hanauer says the minimum wage would be had it kept up with productivity growth since 1968—but I also know that she's a strong supporter of the fast food strikers' demand for a $15 an hour minimum wage, and would view that as a huge political victory.

Now if only we can get all the people in the middle to wrap their minds around what the venture capitalists and socialists already know.