Both Obama and (R)Rubio support this idea. I think it will all stay relative and prices for all goods will increase as a result. At the same time, inflation has made everything rise in cost except for off course our wages. Do you think $9.00 an hour will help the economy? I think a tax increase on the rich would do a better job imo. whats yours? The other thing about minimum wage jobs is they are jobs, not careers. These $7.25 jobs are for teenagers who are for the most part not in dyer need for an extra $1.00 an hour.

I think the more important part is even if those kids don't need the extra dollar an hour they are much more likely to put it back into the economy to help stimulate it, unlike the CEO making $25 million a year who just lets it sit in an offshore account because they already have more money than they can ever spend. Although I agree with the fact that in reality it is likely just going to cause inflation on most goods and will probably just end up as pay cut to the middle class who will likely not see a change in their purchasing power. Excuse the grammar typed this on my phone.

There's the whole fallacy of minimum wage equating to a living age going around now. Anyone who's opposed to raising the minimum wage is "obviously classist against poor people."

The issue isn't whether or not those working for minimum wage could use a bump in pay. The issue is weighing the benefit of pumping more money into lower income discretionary spending against taking that money from the employers. Whether or not "affording it" is the issue, there are and will be repercussions from this, the least of which are layoffs and business closures. Whether real or perceived, businesses are accruing more costs, from higher gas prices to Obamacare, and that will factor into the issue of higher minimum wage.

The key is finding out how much is an injection of money into the economy, and how much of it is just shuffling it around and not really doing anything positive for the economy.

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I'd be happier if they lowered the maximum wage.

Seriously though, maybe we need to sign a new CBA and limit the minimum salary for rookies since we really have no idea how good they're going to be or how well they're going to be able to contribute till after they work a few years. I definitely support raising the veteran minimum though.

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If minimum wage had actually followed inflation, it would be over $10/hr now.

As for "employer costs?" RW blather, for the most part. Employers hire people based on needing help to do what they do. If their business is growing, they'll hire more people, regardless what the min wage is.

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I am all for it. I would finally get a raise.

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Washington State's minimum wage is already at $9.19 an hour, so if it were to raise nationally to a minimum of $9.00 an hour, would WA then raise theirs?

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I think $9/hr is a reasonable wage for a college student/young adult waiting/checking/stocking/scrubbing while they try to figure out what to do with their lives. I think it's way too much money for a high school student flipping burgers/tearing tickets/scooping popcorn while they live with their parents and I think it's way too low for an "actual" adult who has kids/bills/mortgage/rent/debt and is having trouble finding a better/higher paying job. So that's what I think.

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Tanzania¹²

Think you could live on $9 per hour?

Things are so expensive these days that $20 isn't enough to have a chance to save anything.


At least if you live on the west coast.

This would only be a decent idea if every single job out there that needs done has a worth of $9 an hour. That isn't the case, so I don't support this.

Also, keep in mind that we will be the ones who have to pay for this, not the business owners.

It's a dumb idea. As someone said above. I live in Idaho and the only people I can recall making Minimum wage back in the 1990's was high school kids working at burger king (insert fast food joint here).

It does no good to raise the minimum wage as all it would do would affect high schoolers.... I don't know of anyone who works for minimum wage. No one at my company is paid minimum wage so what's the point?

The original poster.. You say tax the rich- why? How many more taxes do you want for the "rich"? I don't understand the presidents obsession with penalyzing successful people. Unless of coarse he's acting out his socialists fantasies and trying to be robin hood with wealth redistribution. The fact is the government is addicted to spending. The spending needs to stop. The government needs to do as the private sector did and cut the fat. Trim down departments and reign in the wasteful spending. The government needs to FINALLY pass a buget-- which it hasn't done once since Obama took office.

Minimum wage at the federal level should be what it takes to get by in the cheapest region of the country, not what it takes to make it in the more expensive regions. States already are allowed, and do set their rates higher than the federal government where it's more expensive to live. This is another thing that people in one part of the country look at and thnk "man I can't live off $7.00/hr while someone in another part of the country would be able to live and have money left over at $9.00/hr.

Basically my stance is that the federal minimum wage is fine where it's at, but states can and should adjust it for their own cost of living.

Well said. Minimum wage is not meant to be a wage one can live on. I worked starting at minimum wage when I was in high school, living with my parents. After that, no way. Pretty hard to justify paying a guy $9.00 an hour to sell $5.00 burgers.

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Would some sort of tiered system be way out of line? My brain's not competent enough to work out even the largest details of such a system, but I'm sure somebody else has some ideas. If it's not too much of a liberal idea to be discussed here rationally.

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Tanzania¹²

I really think the market has that system built in. Competition drives the price points both for products and for jobs. Minimum wage was designed to establish a minimum standard for the lowest paying jobs, ensuring companies couldn't pay their employees pennies for work and rip them off. I really think minimum wage needs to be hard-wired to inflation, allowing it to go up or down in direct proportion or percentage to it. And if inflation would put that number at over $10 per hour now, then the market should be able to handle this latest proposal. Of course, implementing it now, in a period of economic sluggishness and instability isn't exactly the best time. I'd think ideally, it's done at a time when the market is most energetic, stable, and able to handle a rise in cost:earnings ratio.

But I'm not an economist, so what do I know, eh?

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I question whether such an increase would make enough of a difference to be worth the pitfalls, when you consider that many minimum-wage jobs are actually making a lot more once tips are factored in.

http://www.payscale.com/tipping-chart-2012

I delivered pizzas for Papa Johns' at minimum wage, but during football season I could make twice again that much in tips (plus $1 per run from the company). A bump in minimum wage would certainly not have been unwelcome, but it would have been a relative drop in the ocean given that I could make $80-$100 on a typical fall Saturday anyway. If not for that, I couldn't have gotten through college on that minimum wage. I don't know a whole lot of college students who don't target tipping vocations before settling for Wendy's.

My current teaching salary works out to $10/hr and it's still barely enough to live on - and I live a minimalist existence. The difference in this case, of course, is the housing/medical/dental benefits rather than tipping. Would a hike in minimum wage bring such benefits to more people? I don't see how.

So, the cost-benefit ratio here seems a little high to me.

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I used to deliver pizzas and would make as much or more with tips as well. If minimum wage were less, then yes pizza delivery drivers and waitresses would make less per hour...but they could lower costs and attract more business which could actually in turn generate more in tips for them...as long as we get over this % based tip bullshit.

Its all relative. To a grown up with children heck no. For a student part timing and renting a room? Its the struggle that helps motivate.

How exactly would lowering minimum wage attract more business?

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Tanzania¹²

After reading more on this I have flipped my view, I don't see how raising the minimum wage to $9.00 really helps the system. Jobs are hard to come by, so displaced workers could more easily swallow a fast food position, I guess. Dumbing down the system and making crummy jobs more comfortable doesn't really target the bigger problem of better jobs disappearing.