Fox Business 2015 GOP primary debate: on Jobs

Ben Carson: Raising the minimum wage increases unemployment

CARSON: People need to be educated on the minimum wage. Every time we raise the minimum wage, the number of jobless people increases. It's particularly a problem in the black community. Only 19% of black teenagers have a job, who are looking for one. And that's because of those high wages. If you lower those wages, that comes down. You know, as a youngster, my first job working in a laboratory as a lab assistant, I would not have gotten those jobs if someone had to pay me a large amount of money. That's what we need to be thinking about. How do we allow people to ascend the ladder of opportunity, rather than how do we give them everything and keep them dependent?

Q: So, you would not raise it?

CARSON: I would not raise it, specifically because I'm interested in making sure that people are able to enter the job market and take advantage of opportunities.

Bobby Jindal: 60 months in a row of job growth in Louisiana

Donald Trump: Don't raise minimum wage; it makes us non-competitive

DONALD TRUMP: I can't be. We are a country that is being beaten on every front economically & militarily. There is nothing that we do now to win. We don't win anymore. [If our] wages are too high, we're not going to be able to compete against the world. I hate to say it, but we have to leave it the way it is. People have to work really hard and have to get into that upper stratum. But we can not do this if we are going to compete with the rest of the world. We just can't do it.

Q: So do not raise the minimum wage?

TRUMP: I would not do it.

CARSON: Every time we raise the minimum wage, the number of jobless people increases.

MARCO RUBIO: If I thought that raising the minimum wage was the best way to help people increase their pay, I would be all for it, but it isn't. If you raise the minimum wage, you're going to make people more expensive than a machine.

Donald Trump: I have relevant experience by creating jobs and assets

John Kasich: I created jobs in Congress & in Ohio; let's make it thrice

I've been an innovator my entire career. And I really don't care what special interests or lobbyists have to say. I have a job to do when I take over a public office. Now, we freeze non-defense discretionary for eight years. We also put an increase in defense spending. Our tax cuts balance out. And at the end of the day, we will get to a balanced budget.

And I want everybody here to know, when I was Budget Committee chairman in Washington, I stepped on every toe in that town, and we got to a balanced budget, and we had enormous job growth. And as governor of Ohio, we went from 350,000 lost jobs to a gain of 347,000 jobs. I'll do it in Washington. I've done it twice; I'll do it thrice for the United States of America.

John Kasich: When you balance the budget & cut taxes, people get work

Marco Rubio: Raising minimum wage would replace people with machines

DONALD TRUMP: [If our] wages are too high, we're not going to be able to compete against the world.

CARSON: Every time we raise the minimum wage, the number of jobless people increases.

MARCO RUBIO: If I thought that raising the minimum wage was the best way to help people increase their pay, I would be all for it, but it isn't. In the 20th century, it's a disaster. If you raise the minimum wage, you're going to make people more expensive than a machine. And that means all this automation that's replacing jobs and people right now is only going to be accelerated. Here's the best way to raise wages: Make America the best place in the world to start a business or expand an existing business.

Mike Huckabee: Wages for bottom 90% of the economy stagnant for 40 years

Rick Santorum: Jobs are open in manufacturing but no skilled workers