Apologizing for calling minimum wage workers "dumb and incompetent," Michelli claims his remark was "rhetorical"

Summary: On News Radio 740 KVOR, host Joseph Michelli apologized for his earlier remark that those who work for the minimum wage are "dumb and incompetent." The statement followed an apology he emailed to Colorado Media Matters, in which he called the original remarks a "point I cloddishly tried to make." In his on-air apology, Michelli said he meant the remark as a "sort of rhetorical question" that posited a viewpoint he did not necessarily hold.

On the September 5 broadcast of News Radio 740 KVOR's The Joseph Michelli Show, host Joseph Michelli apologized for his August 29 remark that those who work for the minimum wage are "dumb and incompetent." The statement followed an apology he emailed to Colorado Media Matters on September 2, in which he called the original remarks a "point I cloddishly tried to make." In his on-air apology, Michelli said he meant the remark as a "sort of rhetorical question" that posited a viewpoint he did not necessarily hold. He further insisted that, despite his opposition to raising the minimum wage, he holds no such view of those who work for the minimum wage and purported to explain the context of his remarks:

What I was saying was, if you hold the view that it's only an entry-level job and that everybody who wants out of it can be out of it, then does that mean that those who stay in it for life are uneducated and stupid? That was the question.

As Colorado Media Matters noted, on the August 29 airing of his show Michelli repeatedly expressed skepticism that raising the minimum wage would benefit low-income workers and their families. He also said:

How can you support a family on a minimum-wage job? Or is this really the reality? There's just some people who have so limited skills. Let's just be honest. They have such limited skills they cannot possibly make it in a competitive marketplace. You know, the intellectual curve is evenly distributed, right? So, you got some Albert Einsteins, like my producers, and you got some me's. And, you know, between those Albert Einsteins and me is like a vast cavern of intellectual power. So they will always make more than I will by dint of their intellectual ability.

[...]

I mean, is that the way it works -- is just life is what it is? You get dealt a hand, and some people are going to get squat, zero, nada. And because of that we should lift the minimum wage just to compensate for the fact that they are dumb and incompetent. Is that it? I mean, because that's not the free enterprise system. That is communism, isn't it?

In the September 2 apology Michelli emailed to Colorado Media Matters, he said:

As to the context of my comments, I am sure you are aware that the point I cloddishly tried to make was simply that despite a series of callers saying that everyone can "lift themselves up from minimum wage jobs if they just tried harder," I am not sure that is reality. I was asking a rhetorical question and actually joking with my producers about their intellect relative than mine. Pointing out playfully that compensation and intellect are not always duly compensated (as my pay might exceed theirs but they are the brains of my show).

I will apologize for my statement on the air Tuesday [September 5]. Clarifying that I do not view minimum wage workers as lesser than me.

From the September 5 broadcast of Newsradio 740 KVOR's The Joseph Michelli Show:

It is now 4:09 on News Radio 740 KVOR. I had this very odd experience. Never had it happen in eight years of talk radio. First time in my life, I started getting email from people in other states. I started getting email from people outraged at me in Northern Colorado. Now, in all due respect, on a good day our signal, you know, carries well beyond DIA, but it normally doesn't get out to Longmont, doesn't get out to Fort Collins, doesn't get out to the state line of Wyoming. So I'm trying to figure out what is up, cause everybody's just hating me. I mean, the emails were vicious, some of them, about how uneducated I was and how incompetent I was. And I was trying to figure out what is going on? I mean, I just don't understand. I mean, I am incompetent and I'm uneducated, but, I mean, how do they know so quickly in Wyoming? And the Internet is the answer. And what happened was, just so you know, on a watchdog website that watches for conservative talk radio, and particularly watches for inaccuracies in conservative talk radio, someone published my picture and audio from this show about my views on minimum wage. Now, the audio that they excerpt, just so you know, came in relation to a conversation we've been having where we said, "Hey, minimum wage workers, you know, this is all entry level." And then people said, "If people wanted not to work for minimum wage they could choose not to." So I was doing this sort of rhetorical question, and I involved the producers of this show, and I was talking about their superior intellect as Albert Einsteins and my lesser intellect, and I was doing this whole spiel about that. And in the context of that I said, "So, in essence, does that mean that if you stay in minimum wage for your entire life that you're stupid and uneducated?" I mean, that's the essence of what I was saying. So, because of that, I said, in essence, that people who are minimum wage are stupid and uneducated. So I would like to apologize. And I wrote to the -- I found the website, the media website; I wrote them an apology to say at no point in my life have I ever believed people who work for minimum wage are stupid and uneducated. That is not my belief. I have plenty of beliefs that are controversial and you can hate me over, but that's not my view of the world. I personally have worked for minimum wage. My father's been a union worker. This is a -- I've lived in a Democrat family. I've worked for Federico Pena in the state level; the House minority leader then, later on to go into the Department of Transportation. I have supported Democratic candidates for District Attorney; I've run their campaigns. It was really atrocious to me to be quoted in that way and people to actually believe that's the core of my essence, cause it's not. I have no view that the minimum wage is a bastion of uneducated or incompetent people. What I was saying was, if you hold the view that it's only an entry-level job and that everybody who wants out of it can be out of it, then does that mean that those who stay in it for life are uneducated and stupid? That was the question. I do not believe--one more time--that people who are inept -- Now, I expect that this website is going to constantly watch for what I say. And so there'll be all kinds of things that will be said. I hope that they'll be said in context. And, if not, I'll continue to communicate my intention on that website and let them know where I stand on issues. I stand against the minimum wage increase. I also offered anybody who wanted to come on my show to be able to represent the opposite point of view.

—C.H.