the king, elvis presley. it's an '80s flashback you don't want to miss. christine romans tackling triple down economics with newt gingrich. i'm fredricka whitfield. "your money" starts right now. a 21st century labor movement brewing with the support of president obama and leading economists. i'm christine romans, this is "your money." these are the people who flip your burgers, and clean your offices and they want a raise. [ chanting ] >> reporter: fast food woeshgs aren't the only ones at the bottom of the economic ladder. 1.6 million americans live on the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. that works out to just overs 15ds,000 a year, well below the poverty line for a family of three. another 17 million americans earn only slightly more. >> we have to sacrifice. either my husband eats today and i eat tomorrow, or -- you know,

just to make sure my kids eat. >> reporter: the president says those workers need raise. >> it's well past the time to raise a minimum wage that in real terms right now is below where it was when harry truman was in office. >> reporter: democrats wa s wan raise the wage. some call it a political solution. not an economic one. >> raising the minimum wage, having a job that pays $10 an shower not the american dream. >> reporter: the usdeo of america's largest employer walmart sees it this way. >> the issue isn't where you start it's where you go to once you've started. >> reporter: the options for those hooking gore jobs that way well are diminishing. millions of middle class jobs lost during the recession, replaced by low wage ones. one america, two economies and a debate wage rages over who bears the responsibility for rewarding hard work with a livable wage. this week, 75 economists signed a letter supporting a democratic

proposal to raise the minimum wage, and tie it to inflation. they argue, today's minimum wage buys less than it once did. the min much wage was last raised in 2009, $7.29 an hour. where it is now. adjusted to are inflation, the buying power of the minimum wage is down from 2009 and $3.5 lower than in 1ds 68. the other side says raising the minimum wage will kill jobs. the employment policies institute says up to a million jobs could vanish if wages are hiked. why? businesses were cut back work herbs, raise prices. and businessless suffer es specialtiesly those who rely on low-wage workers. michael saltzman is one of those opponents. the research director at the employment policies institute. mark moregel a former mayor of new orleans. thanks to joining me today. these are entry-level jobs.

i hear it from business owners. these are jobs not worth more than $7.25 an hour. why should we pay them more? >> we should pay them more because these workers deserve more. corporate profits and earnings have indeed increased. and because the idea in this country around fairness and economic justice is that we ought to reward work and provide for people i think a basic minimum wage so they can earn their way along. they can pay for the basic necessities of life. this is an issue of fairness. all of the arguments contrary to it are based on hocus-pocus economic theory. >> you mentioned the big companies and all of their big -- they're big. maybe a higher minimum wage for big companies but what about smaller companies? wait. what about the economic fairness for me? i'm not going to work as many workers. >> most work for major corporations. they work for companies that have more than 100 workers. the fact of the matter is, it's that workers who feel honored,

who are respected are also much more productive workers. so this is really an issue of economic justice and fairness, and why shouldn't we create a basic minimum? i would challenge anyone to look into the eyes of a minimum wage worker and say you'll be worse off if we pay you more. >> yeah. look into their eyes and say the job you're doing is not worth more than it is right now. they kwo dwould disagree. michael a poll found that 71% of americans support raising the minimum wage with majorities of democrats republicans and independents all in favor of raising it. 75 economists and 71% of americans wrong? >> well, i don't think democrats really believe that poll numbers determine werther a policy is good. if they, they'd be, you know, throwing the affordable care act overboard. this letter from economist ice think was more of a political statement than an economic statement. a number of research laborers on there. the bot-of-broader point is, mark is saying, look into the eyes of workers and talk to them

about a minimum wage. i would say look into the eyes of the small business owners. actually most min much wage workers with with fewer employees. raise costs by 40% and then we still want you to be able to hire and provide the same number of opportunities that do you right now. as someone who represents the urban league, where a number of the cities in the country, teen unemployment over 30 percent pshgs it surprises me we're talking about a policy like this, that the evidence clearly shows is going to reduce opportunities specifically for those at the bottom rungs of the career ladder. it's the last thing we need to do and it's an out-loaded policy. there are better ways to raise poverty than raising the minimum wage. >> the administration's folk sis in the wrong place, it's said. listen. >> instead of helping to create jobs the president is focused on making it easier to live without one. >> hmm. mark, shouldn't the message from the white house be more about creating good jobs that pay

more, and retraining efforts for people in these low-wage jobs so they can get the good jobs that are out there? >> speaker boehner should act an the american jobs act. quit stalling on job creation like the american jobs act, reauthorization of the transportation bill, or increases in the minimum wage. i mean, when you look at the reality of what is in fact occurring, i think the president and the executive branch have proposed things that have stalled out in the congress because of filibusters and obstructi obstructionism. here's what's important. economists included seven nobel laureates. they said and i agree with them, increases in the minimum wage have not historically created high unemployment. in fact, the opposite is true, because if people earn more money, they're going to spend that in the economy on the necessities life. food, clothing, health is diapers, things they need for their children and so many of

these low-wage workers are in fact women who are raising children. >> last word to michael saltzman. >> there's another side of that equation that's, what happens when you take money from employers and that they have to raise prices or reduce the number of opportunities? i mean, we're here in california where san jose just went to a $10 minimum wage and we've seen the impact in san jose. restaurants have cut back on students. some had to close their doors. a case studiy we could see nationwide if we go to $10 in congress. >> michael saltzman, mark more yell, we'll talk about this all year. a platform that won't go away. >> time for action is now. >> thank you. in between the leg warmers, power ballots and shoulder pads, there was reagan onices. what happened to trickle down? why are they not leading to better paying jobs? i go one-on-one with newt gingrich, next. i have low testosterone. there, i said it.

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remember big hair and stirrup pants and when video killed the radio star? you probably also remember the economic theory of the day. conservatives calmed it supply side. liberals called it trickle down and ferrous buehler's boring economics teacher quizzed the class about another term for it. >> does anyone know what vice president bush calmed this in 1980? anyone? something d.o.o. economics. view doo economics. >> whatever want to call it, the theerpy goes like this.

cutting taxes on the rich helps everyone else, because the rich spend that money to create jobs. to invest, to buy things. in short, creating economic growth that lifts everyone up. an idea embraceed by president reagan lending it yet nor name. reaganomics. >> our aim is to increase our national wealth so all will have more. not just redistribute what we already have, which is just a sharing of scarcity. >> three decades later, whether the idea could make a comeback. after all, in this economy the rich are getting richer. since 2009, 95% of nshg gains have gone to the top 1% and corporations are reeling in record profits. just this week we heard from the banks that their branging in billions. could some of that wealth trickle down? newt gingrich is the former republican speaker of the house and co-host of cnn's cross fire. newt, seeing a huge concentration of wealth. some say the obama economy has favored the very top of the income. the growing income gap between

the haves and have nots. leaving tax consults aside what has to happen for the wealth to trickle down? >> well, first of you a, i don't think that in the reagan area you had trickle down. the goal was to really cut taxes on small business. the rich take care of themselves. obama's living proof. here's a guy preaching inequality while the inequality keeps growing. when you get to be the size of warren buffett's fortune, so many lawyers and smart accountants you manipulate whatever the government does. the keep is upper middle class and middle class workers, very often husband and wife both working, people who start businesses, historically in america, we start about 500,000 small businesses a year. about 400,000 fail. so we have a net increase every year of 100,000 small businesses. that's been the driving force. the real focus of reagan was, and i was a part of this with jack kemp. the real focus was, less

regulation, less red tape. more free time to grow jobs. lower taxes on people who want to go out and be aunt tentrepre. make people feel good about creating jobs. it worked twice. with reagan and in the '90s with clinton, in both cases, it did dramatic changes. >> you have 2.3 million children in this country who are living with a parent who is long-term unemployed. newt. 2.3 million kids. if reaganomics works, why aren't soaring corporate profits helping everybody? >> well, raken nommics was not just about soaring corporate profits. this is frankly a left wing liable, because they so completely misunderstand the nature of free enterprise. the reagan approach included helping people find jobs. the welfare reform program, that we passed in 1996 led to the largest increase in children leaving poverty in american history. the late '90s was the best period of moving children out of

poverty into a much higher income status, and nobody on the left wants to study it, because it requires work. frankly, on unemployment compensation i would extend it, but i would attach a learning component, apresentishships tied to businesses, and i would try to say, if you can't find a job, we want to help you acquire the job skills to enable you to find a job. in terms of poor children, i think school choice is absolutely central. we trap poor children in terrible schools to pay off the teachers' union. we ruin those childrens lives and wonder why they have a hard time finding a job by the public bureaucracy. >> nice to see you. coming up, a prediction from facebook's founder. nchtsds commuter science or basic programs will be as important a skill as being able to do basic reading and writing.

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girls took the test at all, in the entire state. the problem gets worse in college. women earn more than half of all bachelors degrees but just 12% of computer science degrees. so where are the female tech leaders of the future going to come from? randy zuckerberg is the former marketing director for facebook, editor-in-chief and facebook founder's city of mark zuckerberg. i asked what parents and schools need to do to get girls in to tech? >> it's almost like a foreign language that's not foreign to them, but a language that's going to be useful to them for the rest of their lives. why wouldn't we start exposing children to it very young? i think there's a lot of things going on here. i think it's not starting early enough in education. so by the time that computer science is introduced, that there's already the social stigma op kind of, oh, that's for boys, or i'm not good at that. i also think it's a lot to do with gaming.

the types of games that children play early on, and there's been a lot of talk recently about things like goldiblocks. other things that disrupt the pink aisle in the toy store and encourage girls to get interested in engineers early on. >> you grew up in a house with technology. you and your brother, a very tech-focused household. what about those who don't have the role model op inquisitive household where you're not pushed to do the norm? >> you're right. i was very, very lucky in that my dad was very untra pra neural. always had the latest gadgets and machines in his dentist office and really encouraged us. we were one of the first word processors. things like that. we talk so much about getting our children off tech. what about for the segment of the population where they don't even have -- maybe they're not getting enough? not getting the access to tech. because of that they're, are they going to be behind, for their horse lives? so i really think that schools,

we have to do a better job of having at least shared access to these devices and making that part of the curriculum and education early on, and as parents, educating ourselves enough to have baseline coverses with our children. >> does it hurt some companies if there aren't more women working there? >> it's something a lot of these companies are striving for. i know you talked almost any company in the valley, they december politically want to hire nor women in these roles. pinterest was a wake-up call for the valley because it wasn't the usually early adopters that are kind of the white men in silicon valley. it was women. in the middle of the country that were adopting pinterest in full force. i think all of a sudden that made a lot of people sit up and think, oh, my gosh. we should be investing in women. we should be designing more technology for women. this is really a very, very powerful group. so i'm interested to see kind of what the next crop of big

companies like that looks like. coming up, crumpled 100 dollar bill, wild parties and -- whatever that is. "the wolf of wall street" was a blockbuster, but was it really like that? fact checking. that's next. there's a new form of innovation taking shape.

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i have to say, chris, not all of it is fiction, but i went down to the new york stock exchange to ask the veterans down there. the real deal, and this is what they had to say. >> this is the greatest company in the world! >> reporter: it has sex -- drugs -- rock 'n' roll -- and money. lots and lots of money. "the wolf of wall street" takes place in the go-go '90s when dollars flowed bike champaign and life was a lot less p.c. >> stop. >> reporter: despite leonardo dicaprio wig win at the golden globes, this three-hour exercise in excess glamorizes the worst of wall street and is highly exaggerated. >> over the top. totally over the top. >> a world certainly i have never lived in and most of my peers have never lived in. >> reporter: the film is loosely based on the life's jordan belfour spending time in prison

for swindling people out of millions of dollars. he's yet to repay many of his victims said he was caught up in the get-rich culture of the time. >> the $1,000 suits and gold watches and drinking at lunch and cocaine at the end of the day was also like adult disneyland for dysfunctional people. >> reporter: wolves like bellford are howling no longer. millions still flow through wall street. here at the arena where they filmed scenes for "the wolf of wall street" it's rare all of these yachts slips are filled and these days bankers are much more likely to be pinching pennies and that throwing their dollars away. >> reporter: today instead of three more lunches, they bell you up to the bar at their very own starbucks. >> i remember down here when the straws in people's pockets were loaded with things other than coffee. >> there's still drugs around but now they're vitamins and probably viagra. there's stilt a lot of coke

around, it's either diet-free or caffeine-free. >> reporter: make no mistake, cash is still king on wall street. lean times taught many the not just about making a quick buck. >> bad times, good times on balance great times. not great from a monetary point of view, but great because what a wonderful community have been exposed to, and to work in. >> reporter: they may not be the womans of wall street. some of today's traders are just happy to be bulls and bears. oh, how times have changed. they all pointed out the fact of so many less people. at the height, 5,000, 6,000 people on the floor, all around wall street. the number has shrunk dramatically and it's all computers. and one fout me, computers don't party. >> those are the pump and dump scams. jordan bellford, not legitimate traders of the new york stock exchange. why not more women on wall

street? would have been coming on wall street right at the peek of that. >> many don't even want to see that movie. doesn't even want to give it the time of day. thanks for joining us on "your money." come join john berman and me every beak day morning on cnn. until then, have a great weekend. hello, everyone. i'm fredricka whitfield. here are the top stories we're following in the "cnn newsroom." a manhunt following another school shooting. >> when i came down from the school, the girl was walking with her arm, looked like she got shot. >> two students at a philadelphia high school shot. >> and new developments just last hour. suspected gunman turns himself in. and after months of leaks over how the nsa scoop s up dat, some of it yours and mine. the president says he's making