The minimum wage should not be raised to$9.00 as campaigned for by the President.

President Obama calls for raising the minimum wage to $9 per hour, up from its current $7.25. He also called for raising the tipped minimum wage " made by tipped employees, such as waitresses " and for indexing the minimum wage to inflation so that it grows along with the economy. For businesses across the country, it would mean customers with more money in their pockets. 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. Currently, the minimum wage does not lift a family of three out of poverty and its covering a much smaller percentage of health care and education costs than it used to. Raising the minimum wage also disproportionately helps women and minorities, since they make up a majority of low-wage workers. Now I will begin to Address your points: Conservatives usually oppose minimum wage increases on the grounds that they will hurt small businesses and job growth. However, study after study has shown that raising the minimum wage does not have a negative effect on employment. In fact, an analysis of state minimum wage increases showed that those state boosting their wage "had job growth slightly above the national average." This holds true even when the economy is weak. Following Obama's State of the Union address, business representatives and conservative media pundits echoed the same talking points. Analyzing Obama's speech for Fox News, Nina Easton, an editor for Fortune magazine, repeated the claim that increasing the minimum wage is a "job killer." Michael Saltsman, research director at the business-backed Employment Policies Institute, told Fox Business News that "minimum wage hikes lead to job losses." Bill Herrle, executive director of the National Federation of Independent Business' Florida affiliate, told Sunshine State News that Obama's plan was a "job killer." But such dire predictions have never materialized. That's because they're bogus. In fact, raising the minimum wage is good for business and the overall economy. Why? Because when poor workers have more money to spend, they spend it, almost entirely in the local community, on basic necessities like housing, food, clothing and transportation. When consumer demand grows, businesses thrive, earn more profits, and create more jobs. Economists call this the "multiplier effect." According to Doug Hall of the Economic Policy Institute, a minimum wage hike to $9 would pump $21 billion into the economy. Moreover, since most minimum wage jobs are in "sticky" (immobile) industries -- such as restaurants, hotels, hospitals and nursing homes and retail stores -- that can't flee overseas, raising the level doesn't lead to job flight. Not surprisingly, the National Restaurant Association is, along with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, one of the fiercest opponents of a minimum wage hike. In recent years, the nation's job growth has been concentrated in low-wage sectors, led by Walmart, the nation's largest private employer, whose pay levels are so low that many employees are eligible for food stamps. More than one-quarter of all jobs pay poverty-level wages. According to a National Employment Law Project study, the majority of new jobs created since 2010 pay just $13.83 an hour or less. This has contributed to the nation's widening economic inequality. Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz recently said, "Increasing inequality means a weaker economy" for all of us. Overall we can see that a minimum wage increase is needed and beneficial.