Governor candidate David Schweikert says wages must rise for Arizona to regain its economic edge

U.S. Rep. David Schweikert made the case Wednesday that the way to help Arizona succeed economically is to raise wages.

“We’re now 45th in affordability. That’s miserable,” the Republican gubernatorial candidate told KTAR News 92.3 FM’s The Mike Broomhead Show on Wednesday. “I mean, how many people can afford a house right now?”

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment decreased in Maricopa and Pima counties from September 2024 to September 2025.

“If you even look at the 2025 data … we actually had negative wage growth in a number of our categories,” Schweikert added.

Schweikert said everyday people are struggling economically and urged Republican politicians to remind voters that they believe free markets and competition will help lower prices and raise wages.

“If you want to raise wages, if you’re saying you care about affordability, first thing you do is raise wages. The way you do that is you get enough economic business growth that they’re competing for your willingness to work,” Schweikert said.

He stressed that Arizona must not only focus on attracting new businesses, but also rethink how it prepares students so they’re ready to succeed in the modern marketplace.

“Arizona is only a couple ticks positive on population growth. And and the political class doesn’t seem willing to intellectually understand this is our demographics, this is where business investment is going, and here’s the suffering of so many people out there when our repossessions, our foreclosures are up,” Schweikert said.

He emphasized multiple times that prosperity is moral.

“Maybe start giving a damn about people and the free market path of, ‘We’re going to make it so our economy grows because prosperity’s moral,’” Schweikert said. “But we don’t spend the time talking about the morality, that prosperity is moral.”

David Schweikert critiqued Gov. Katie Hobbs on economic policy

Schweikert also took the time to critique incumbent Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat.

“We’re trying to point out the number of things governors Hobbs has or hasn’t done to actually help us with affordability in the state, housing, bringing in competition for your willingness to work, bringing in jobs so we could start raising wages,” he said.

Recruiting new businesses is one of his top priorities — and he thinks Hobbs could have done more in that arena.

He pointed to a recent Wall Street Journal story about how AI is decimating cubicle-based careers in Phoenix, which was once full of back-office jobs such as customer service, data entry and payroll processing.

“We all knew this was coming. There’s going to be this rotation in employment in Arizona. The governor had both an economic and a moral obligation to start doing what was necessary to get the next generation of employment here in this Valley,” Schweikert said.

He said it’s important to him to recruit the next generation of employers to Arizona.

“I don’t know if that’s biotech companies or engineering companies, but you recruit everything you can because our wage growth is miserable. It’s functionally flat, in a couple categories negative here in Arizona,” Schweikert said. “If you want to raise wages, if you’re saying you care about affordability, first thing you do is raise wages. The way you do that is you get enough economic business growth that they’re competing for your willingness to work.”

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