Click on the map above to see the minimum wage in your state.
In his State of the Union address, Obama pressed time rate in stages to $ 9 per hour in 2015, up from the current $ 7.25, an indicator of inflation. Change, should it become law, would pay 15 million Americans, according to the White House.
"This evening, let us declare that in the richest nation on Earth, anyone who works full time should have to live in poverty, '' he said. '"This one step will raise the income of millions of working families ... Companies across the country, it will mean customers with more money in their pockets. "
Obama campaigned in 2008 on a promise to raise the Federal minimum wage to $ 9.50 an hour by 2011, but said that he did not follow through during his first term, despite appeals from advocates working to do so.
Not every worker the minimum wage, however, pushes the federal rate, which translates to $ 14,500 a year for a full time employee. Some 18 States plus the District of Colombia have rates higher than the federal level, with Washington State commissioning the highest level at $ 9.19. And 10 States automatically increase minimum wage rates annually for inflation.
Rate was to rise to $ 9, a full-time minimum wage would earn almost $ 18,000 a year, still below the poverty line for a family of four.
Currently, some workers earn per hour in 3.8 million or less than minimum wage, according to the Bureau of labor statistics. This is 5.2 percent of paid workers. But federal statistics do not include those that pay fixed weekly amount, such as maids, landscapers, who paid minimum wage. These people will also benefit from the wage increase.
Related: 10 States raise minimum wage
Obama faces a tough battle to get rate hike through Congress. The last time the House approved such a Bill in 2007, when they agreed to a three-step increase to $ 5.15 per hour from the current rate of $ 7.25 by July 2009.
Raising the minimum wage is a very controversial issue. Democratic lawmakers have introduced bills, including one last year that a wage increase to 9, $ 80 by 2014, which did not result.
Worker advocates say that raising the minimum wage would help boost the economy by putting more money in the hands of low-and middle-income Americans, who are likely to spend it. The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago study showed that the 2011 rise $ 1 in average expenditure in the amount of $ 2,800 a year in families with minimum wage workers.
One of the best ways to get the economy going again put money in the pockets of people who work, who will spend in small businesses in their communities, "said Christine Owens, Executive Director of the national employment law project, a left-leaning."Increasing the minimum wage will stimulate consumer demand and help drive the economic growth of the people who most need it in America-workers ".
The Federal minimum wage has lost 30% of their purchasing power in recent decades, according to the draft law. If the minimum wage had kept pace with the cost of living since 1968, now equal to 10.56 dollars. The White House says that raising the wage to $ 9 restores the value of inflation-adjusted to what it was in 1981.
But employers ' groups say that raising the Federal minimum wage would cost jobs, hiking rates do not help reduce poverty.
Studies have expected least 467500 posts loss rate at up to 9, $ 80, according to the employment policy Institute, which advocates for employers. Another batch means that adolescents less than 114,000 jobs.
Wrote Michael salzman, a research fellow at the Institute, in an editorial in the San Jose Mercury News last month that the "narrow margins-and save a few cents in profit for every dollar of sales means that employer in the face of rising labor costs and not just absorb them."
Are you a middle layer of America is feeling squeezed? If so, email tami.luhby@turner.com. You could be profiled in a future story. First published: February 12, 13: 11: 54 pm et
Finance; Investment; Business; Economics
Finance; Investment; Business; Economics
