How Obama&apos;s push to raise minimum wage would affect you - The Salt Lake Tribune
How Obama&apos;s push to raise minimum wage would affect you
Published January 29, 2014 8:28 am
Washington • Relatively few Americans  less than 5 percent of hourly workers  toil for the minimum wage today.
Yet President Barack Obama&apos;s push to offset decades of inflation by raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour would ripple through the economy and touch the lives of millions more workers and their families. Republicans say some of those in need would be harmed, not helped.
Here are some questions and answers about Obama&apos;s proposal:
A: It&apos;s $7.25 an hour, or about $15,000 per year for full-time work. For a worker supporting a family of two, that falls just below the federal poverty line.
Another 2 million people are paid even less, because of various exceptions in the law. Many are waiters, bellhops and others whose wages are augmented by tips from customers. Their minimum is lower  $2.13 an hour  and hasn&apos;t gone up for more than two decades. Obama supports boosting the minimum for tipped workers to $7.07.
Q: Are these the only workers who would get a boost from Obama&apos;s plan?
A: No. Millions more people who earn less than $10.10 an hour would get an automatic raise. Many of them work in states that have imposed a minimum wage that&apos;s higher than the current federal one.
None is as high as the wage Obama seeks. Washington state&apos;s is highest at $9.32 an hour, adjusted annually for inflation. California&apos;s minimum wage is set to climb to $10 in 2016.
State lawmakers aren&apos;t waiting for a divided Congress to act. Democratic legislators are pushing minimum-wage increases in more than half of the states this year, although several are political longshots.
A: It started at 25 cents per hour in the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act. Since then, Congress has raised it 22 times. Its value peaked in the 1960s, but the wage hasn&apos;t kept up with inflation since then.
Q: Many congressional Republicans and other opponents say that would dampen hiring or even spark layoffs at a time when the nation is struggling with high unemployment. They argue that much of the cost would be passed along to consumers as higher prices. And they say it isn&apos;t an efficient way to help the poor, because many people earning the minimum wage are part of a middle-class or higher-earning households.
House Speaker John Boehner said Obama&apos;s proposal could lead to job-cutting and discourage companies from adding entry-level positions that he said were needed especially by minorities trying to start up the economic ladder.
"It&apos;s bad policy, and it will hurt the very people the president purports to want to help," he said Tuesday.
A: They say that raising the minimum wage would boost the economy and create jobs, because cash-strapped workers tend to spend any extra money that comes in. Supporters argue that boosting low wages would help narrow the gap between the nation&apos;s poorest and richest families. And they say full-time workers with families shouldn&apos;t have to live in poverty.