In a letter released Tuesday through the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank, 75 economists, including seven Nobel Laureates, argue that the government should hike the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 an hour by 2016 and then peg future increases to inflation. Research suggests that a minimum-wage increase could have a small stimulative effect on the economy as low-wage workers spend their additional earnings, raising demand and job growth, and providing some help on the jobs front, the letter reads. During the initial phase-in period of a $10.10 minimum wage, the U.S. economy would grow by $22 billion, according to a December analysis from EPI. The economic growth would result in the creation of 85,000 new jobs, the analysis concluded. In addition to benefitting the economy overall, a minimum wage increase would go a long way in helping the workers who rely on bottom-barrel wages to make ends meet. Fast food, retail and other low-wage workers have taken to the streets over the past several months to argue that their minimum wage incomes aren’t enough to live on. It takes a wage of $10.20 an hour to survive even in America’s cheapest county, according to a 2012 analysis from Wider Opportunities for Women. Raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour could lift about 5 million Americans out of poverty, according to a study released earlier this month by Arindrajit Dube, an economist at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and one of the signatories of the letter.
Posted on: Thu, 16 Jan 2014 10:27:17 +0000
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