CBO report: Minimum wage hikes would kill 500,000 jobs but lift 900,000 out of poverty

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http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/02/18/cbo-report-minimum-wage-hikes-would-kill-500000-jobs-but-lift-900000-out-of-poverty/

CBO report: Minimum wage hikes would kill 500,000 jobs but lift 900,000 out of poverty
By Reuters
Tuesday, February 18, 2014 17:08 EST
By Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Raising the U.S. minimum wage would lead to the loss of about half a million jobs by late 2016 while lifting almost a million Americans out of poverty, the Congressional Budget Office forecast in a report on Tuesday that reignited debate over one of President Barack Obama’s top priorities this year.

Buoyed by polls showing three-quarters of Americans in favor of a minimum wage hike, Obama and his fellow Democrats advocate raising the minimum hourly wage to $10.10 from the current $7.25 in a move to boost the stagnant wages of millions of low income workers.

In the long term, Democrats also want to tie future minimum wage increases to inflation, avoiding the legislative fights over wages for lower-paying jobs.

Republicans in Congress and allies in the business community have long argued that any such hike would encourage employers to shed workers to help offset higher salaries, and have vowed to fight it ahead of the congressional elections in November.

They quickly seized on one of the findings in the CBO report: that raising the minimum wage in three annual steps to $10.10 would result in about 500,000 jobs being lost by late 2016.