Lately, there has been a lot of news coverage of Governor Phil Murphy and his latest push for a $15 an hour minimum wage.

It’s been fun watching the Governor fight with Senate President Steve Sweeney over the issue. Sweeney accusing Murphy of “showboating” and Murphy’s comeback of, “That’s not showboating” was particularly entertaining.

Entertainment aside, once again New Jersey’s newspapers missed another opportunity to call out our governor over his hypocrisy on a $15 per hour minimum wage. Why do they continue to allow Murphy off the hook on this issue?

Murphy is a hypocrite on the $15 per hour issue. There is no getting around it. For example, there was the time Murphy’s soccer team tried to pay a professional with a master’s degree nothing, not one penny. Eventually, the league forced the team to pay the employee $15,000 for a season that lasts 6 months, but that is less than the $15,600 a $15 per hour employee would have made. Don’t take my word for it, this was well-documented by Deadspin.

Yet, when Murphy was busy whining about Sweeney saying he was “showboating,” according to NJ.com, Murphy had this to say:

"That's not showboating," the governor said. "That's people's lives. That's people's ability to put food on the table for their kids, to be able to afford health care."

That’s strange, Murphy didn’t seem to care about a guy with a master’s degree working for his soccer team being able to put food on the table or affording health care. Remember, Murphy tried to pay the guy zero.

Did any of the reporters at the press conference ask Murphy about that? Nope! Not one question.

Let’s not forget that prior to the 2018 season there was no way possible Murphy was paying soccer players less than $15 per hour. Basic math proves that! RJ Allen at Backline Soccer wrote a piece that used basic math to explain that it was likely five players on a team were paid the league minimum of $15,000:

“It’s much more likely most players are making between $15,000 and $20,000 a season. To fit under the $315,000 cap, five players could be making about $20,000, while eight players make $17,500, and the remaining five players make the league minimum of $15,000.”

So yeah, up until 2018 Murphy paid at least five players on his soccer team less than $15 per hour and paid professional staff less than $15 per hour. During at least part of this time he was campaigning for governor on $15 per hour. New Jersey’s newspapers never once called him out on his hypocrisy and still fail to call him out.

If two guys at The Bob & Steve Show could figure out Murphy is a hypocrite on the $15 an hour issue why can’t New Jersey’s newspapers?

Maybe they simply choose to ignore the hypocrisy because they want what the governor wants.

Bottom line: Murphy is a hypocrite in this issue and New Jersey’s Newspapers don’t care.