Critics went espresso on the insults against Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) after he bashed coffee shop workers as “slacker baristas” for not paying off their student loans.
On his “Verdict With Ted Cruz” podcast earlier this week, the conservative called young working Americans “slackers,” who will benefit from the Biden administration’s student loan forgiveness plan. President Joe Biden announced on Wednesday that up to $20,000 in student loan debt will be canceled for some borrowers.
Cruz suggested that if young people could “get off the bong for a minute” they might manage to “head down” to the polling station and vote.
“If you are that slacker barista who wasted seven years in college studying completely useless things, now has loans and can’t get a job, Joe Biden just gave you 20 grand,” Cruz said on the podcast.
“You know, maybe you weren’t gonna vote in November, and suddenly you just got 20 grand!” he added.
However, the median wage as of 2021 for food and beverage workers is $12.49 an hour, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Recently, a barista posted a video on TikTok explaining that two drinks may cost more than his earnings for one hour of work, The New York Post reported.
“It is so fucked up that as a barista, someone can come up and order two drinks that cost more than what I make in an hour,” he said in the viral video. “Two drinks that I can make in two minutes. And I make less than that in one hour.”
Appalled critics on Twitter slammed Cruz for denigrating working Americans.