In his State of the Union address last January, President Obama proposed raising the national minimum wage to $10.10 per hour from its current level of $7.25 per hour. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that this would raise the wages of 16.5 million workers but also put at least 500,000 out of work. At a time of high unemployment, with an estimated 24 million people either unemployed or underemployed, this would be a bad tradeoff.
The Wall Street Journal reports, “Some Republicans Back State Minimum-Wage Increases,” that five states, including Nebraska where I live, have minimum-wage proposals on the ballot this year. In Nebraska the minimum-wage would increase in two steps to $9.00/hour from $7.25.  Nebraska’s unemployment rate is currently 3.6%, and it is estimated that there are only 27,000 people in the state being paid the minimum wage.  In other words, Nebraska actually has a labor shortage and it is unlikely that a mild increase in the minimum wage will put very many people out of work.
A minimum wage contributes to fairness but not to growth.  Both are important but growth is the more important of the two.  A minimum-wage increase in Nebraska will increase fairness without hurting economic growth and so I support this.
At the national level, an increase in the minimum wage would increase fairness but also hurt economic growth (by causing substantial unemployment) and so I oppose it.