Obama calls for minimum wage increase that would still result in abject poverty
I am ALL FOR increasing the minimum wage. But let's not pretend that $9 an hour is a living wage for most of the country.
Obama Calls For Raising Minimum Wage To $9 Per Hour In State Of The Union | ThinkProgress
Tonight, let’s declare that in the wealthiest nation on Earth, no one who works full-time should have to live in poverty, and raise the federal minimum wage to $9.00 an hour. This single step would raise the incomes of millions of working families. It could mean the difference between groceries or the food bank; rent or eviction; scraping by or finally getting ahead. For businesses across the country, it would mean customers with more money in their pockets.
In fact, working folks shouldn’t have to wait year after year for the minimum wage to go up while CEO pay has never been higher. So here’s an idea that Governor Romney and I actually agreed on last year: let’s tie the minimum wage to the cost of living, so that it finally becomes a wage you can live on.
According to a fact sheet released by the administration, “Raising the minimum wage to $9 restores the inflation-adjusted value of the minimum wage back to where it was in 1981.” If the minimum wage had simply kept up with inflation since the 1960s, it would be over $10 per hour today.
