CBO: Minimum Wage Hike to $10.10 Could Cost 500K Jobs

On Tuesday, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that raising the federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour could cost 500,000 Americans their jobs. 

The current federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, and President Barack Obama has pushed congressional Democrats to raise it to $10.10 an hour. Obama has already signed an executive order to raise the minimum wage for federal contractors to $10.10 an hour. 

The CBO report estimated, if fully implemented by 2016, “the $10.10 option would reduce total employment by about 500,000 workers” while bringing 900,000 workers out of poverty. 

As for the $9 option that has previously been proposed by Obama and some Democrats, the CBO estimated that such a hike would cost 100,000 jobs while bringing 300,000 workers out of poverty.