A Plutocrat's Case for Raising the Minimum Wage

Can the venture capitalist Nick Hanauer convince rich people that it’s in their interest to raise the minimum wage?

- Molly Ball

THE SEATTLE-BASED tech entrepreneur Nick Hanauer was riding in a black Uber SUV to the private-jet terminal at Dulles Inter national Airport, outside Washington, D.C., when I asked him whether he really thought his was the best face for the movement to raise the minimum wage to $15. He was on his way to New York for dinner with Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize-winning liberal economist known for his critiques of globalization and free-market economics. Hanauer is generally un impressed by politicians, who have been begging him for money for many years, but the prospect of dining with Stiglitz had him giddy. “He’s, like, God,” Hanauer said.

At my question, Hanauer, who is 56, with blunt features and a pouf of dark hair, paused to collect his thoughts, then leaned forward in his leather seat. “A guy like me—a very successful capitalist, somebody who knows all the rich people— is the best face for the message of reforming capitalism, right?” he said. People might dismiss the argument coming from a fast-food worker or a labor leader. “I’m the one who can say, ‘It doesn’t have to be that way,’ ” he continued. “When they say that the better profits are, the better it will be for everybody, I’m the one who can say ‘That’s a lie.’ ”