LIBRE Says Latinos Better Off Economically, Pushes Policies That Would Reverse Progress

Despite the Kochs’ regular criticism of the Obama economy, a policy analyst for the LIBRE Initiative reported that Hispanics are doing significantly better economically today than they have in the past.

According to a blog on the LIBRE site by Payton Alexander,

These days, a Thanksgiving dinner for 10 costs just over 4 hours of work for the median Hispanic earner, which is 22% less than it did 28 years ago. This is good news, and represents a significant decrease in the amount of time that has to be spent at the office or on the job – and more time with friends and family for the holidays — for Hispanic workers across America
…
While the median worker out of the total population only has to work 3 hours and 45 minutes for the same meal, that gap has been narrowing since 2011, and that is a positive sign.

The counter-intuitive move by the Kochs’ Latino front group shines a light on the awful policies that LIBRE pushes that would disproportionately hurt Latinos. While Alexander writes about the wage gap narrowing between Hispanic workers and the national average, LIBRE is against raising the minimum wage and other economic policies that benefit Latinos. Earlier this year, the Washington Post reported that LIBRE was pushing the idea that “a higher minimum wage might not be in the best interests of Latinos” despite the ample evidence of the opposite.

Following the Kochs’ anti-union agenda, LIBRE has also advocated for right-to-work for less policies also advocated for right-to-work for less policies that break up unions — like the unions civil rights leader Cesar Chavez fought for. One of Chavez’s grandsons, Alejandro Chavez, told BuzzFeed, “LIBRE Initiative do not represent what Cesar Chavez fought for… they do anti-union and anti-collective bargaining messaging.”

Since its inception, LIBRE has attempted to convince Latinos to vote for candidates who support policies that hurt their interests, even campaigning against Hispanic candidates. Now, one of their policy analysts agrees that Latinos are doing better, but that won’t stop the Koch organization from lobbying for a harmful agenda. LIBRE claims to work for Hispanics and Latinos — but in reality, it only works for the benefits of the Koch brothers’ bottom line.

For more on how LIBRE hurts Latinos, read Bridge Project’s report on this Koch initiative: Kochs’ LIBRE Initiative Is Harmful To Hispanic Community.