President Joe Biden’s nominee for a top Justice Department post is a longtime advocate for raising the minimum wage to $15, but she owns up to $1 million in stock in a company chaired by her father that pays its Mexican workforce as little as $1.30 an hour.
Vanita Gupta—whose net worth of between $42 and $187 million makes her the Biden administration’s wealthiest nominee—owns at least $500,000 in Aptiv PLC, an international auto parts manufacturer chaired by her father. In contrast with Gupta’s advocacy for a $15 an hour minimum wage, the company pays some of its Mexican employees hourly rates as low as $1.30, according to active job listings reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon. One job posted on Indeed.com, for example, offers a line operator role at a Zacatecas plant that pays the U.S. dollar equivalent of $260 a month for a 50-hour per week job.
In her nonprofit work and her personal social media, Gupta has repeatedly expressed support for both the $15 per hour minimum wage and a so-called livable wage.
Gupta’s investments have come under increased scrutiny as her confirmation goes down to the wire. A new ad by the Judicial Crisis Network, which is pushing Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W. Va.) to reconsider his support for Gupta, takes aim at her stake worth tens of millions of dollars in Avantor, a separate company tied to Mexico’s heroin production. The Free Beacon reported last month that Gupta was attempting to sidestep the ethical minefield created by her father’s wide array of corporate interests. – READ MORE
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