Fellow blogger Mark Perry makes a good point. In nominal dollars, the upcoming change in the minimum wage from $5.15 per hour in 2007 to $7.25 per hour in 2009 will be a 41% increase. In real, inflation-adjusted dollars (assuming a 3.8% increase in 2008-09), it will be a 25.5% increase, and will be the largest 2-year increase in the real minimum wage in at least 50 years (see chart below -- click on it for larger view).
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Largest minimum wage increase in 50 years
2 comments:
Will that pay for the gasoline/energy price increases over the same time period or does the wage increase become a subsequent loss to inflation from petro chemical cost increases? Makes one wonder what a "living" wage might actually be these days.
I'd like to hear a good definition for this "living wage" term I keep hearing about.
I did a google search to try and find out how many people this will help. The Senate Democrats' have an article on their website that states only 4% of the American workforce will directly benefit from the increased minimum wage. I couldn't find any data on the percent of Americans who may directly suffer (I would imagine that businesses will have to deal with these increased costs through higher prices or layoffs).
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