Vanita Gupta Supports $15 Minimum Wage While Family Business Pays Mexicans $1.30 an Hour

WASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 16: Vanita Gupta, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on
Tom Williams-Pool/Getty Images
Wendell Husebø

Vanita Gupta, President Joe Biden’s nominee for associate attorney general, has long praised proposals to increase the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour while also owning stock in her family’s company which pays its Mexican labor force $1.30 an hour.

Aptiv PLC, the family company, is “an international auto parts manufacturer chaired by [Gupta’s] father” in which Gupta “owns at least $500,000,” according to the Washington Free Beacon. The company maintains a job listing on Indeed.com for its Zacatecas, Mexico plant that pays employees the equivalent of “$260 a month for a 50-hour per week job.”

While serving as President and CEO of The Education Fund in 2018, Gupta made a moral case to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour.

“Raising wages is a moral question: do we value the people who are the engine of our economy or not? The answer must be yes,” she said.

“The majority of people who would benefit from the policy changes we recommend are women, especially women of color, who are overrepresented in the low-wage workforce,” Gupta continued. “The first-hand stories in this report capture the day-to-day struggles of minimum wage life while underscoring the importance of providing better opportunities for low-income communities.”

Aptiv’s business priorities seem to fail the nominee’s own example of paying “women of color” an honest wage. According to the report, “Other positions currently advertised by the company include a full-time general operator job that pays $290 a month and a production line operator position that pays $274 a month.”

In addition to compensating its Mexican labor force below what Gupta believes is a “livable wage,” the corporation also advertises “a major manufacturing base and strong customer relationships” in China, according to SEC filings. The SEC filings also reveal Gupta’s family company paid a “3 percent effective tax rate last year.”

Former President Trump signed legislation that marked the current corporate tax rate at 21 percent by comparison.

As the Senate is scheduled to vote on Gupta’s nomination Thursday morning, reactions to the news rocked Twitter. Arthur Schwartz, the composer and film producer, said, “Whether it’s Believe All Women!™ or Fight for Fifteen!, you’ll always find a hypocrite hiding behind the slogan.”

Breitbart News reported March 11 that Vanita Gupta also owns between $11 million and $55 million of stock in her father’s company which sold acetic anhydride to Mexican cartels, a chemical used to make “high-grade ‘china white’ heroin and methamphetamine.” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) has submitted questions for the record to Gupta regarding her stake in the enterprise.

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