Hillary Clinton wants to raise the minimum wage to $9.50 per hour
Did you hear the news? Apparently in a recent speech Hillary Clinton was quoted as saying that she wanted to raise the minimum wage here in the US to $9.50 per hour. And that’s not all. Apparently she wants to make it so that Congress cannot give themselves a raise unless they raise the minimum wage. At least that’s what I read.
So, for a moment, let’s assume that if she were president that she could do this (and maybe she could with a democratic majority in Congress – I don’t know). What types of implications would this have? Make no mistake, I am not an economist by any means, I am just merely speculating.
On the one hand, I think it is an awesome idea to give people a minimum wage that would allow them to actually be able to support their family. But, would a minimum wage increase not result in the cost of goods and services going up as well? I can’t imagine greedy companies knowing that people have more money to spend and not raising prices.
But even if the prices of things did go up, I would think that there would be a period in between the wage increase and the prices surging where people would be making more and the prices would be stagnant. And if that period were long enough then that could really be a good thing.
When people talk about raising minimum wage I also wonder how that affects people who are not making minimum wage. Let’s say that you have a job where you are making $11 per hour and it took you 3 years to get to that wage. If they suddenly make the minimum wage $9.50 do you get a bump as well?
So, is a minimum wage increase a good thing or a bad thing?
February 13th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
I am no economist, either, but it seems to me that such a sudden increase in minimum wage (what is it now? $7.15/hr?) would lead to higher inflation levels… I think the solution lies in minimum wage - i.e., the wage that a person can survive on without having to find a second - or even a third - job. Since it’d be adjusted for inflation, it would be the perfect solution. On the other hand, the cost of living is different in, say, New York and Midwest, so two people with identical jobs in those two areas would be paid differently, but their money would have equal weight in some other area - or online. This seems to be a bit mind-boggling - and makes me glad I’m not an economist by trade.