Minimum Wage Hike And A Tight Economy
Minimum wage workers are set to get a pay bump later this week: Thursday, the federal minimum wage will go from $5.85 to $6.55. Small business owners say they fear higher wages may just force them to raise prices.
Some economists, however, say that low-wage workers really need the pay bump to keep up with the rising cost of living.
Host Liane Hansen talks to Sylvia Allegretto, an economist with the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment at the University of California, Berkeley. They discuss what the coming minimum wage increase means for workers and employers at a time when the economy is struggling.
More than 50 percent of minimum-wage workers work full time, Allegretto says. And many of them are women.
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