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Raising the federal minimum wage would ease poverty for some workers, but cost others their job

Tracey Samuelson Jul 9, 2019
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Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi introduces the Raise the Wage Act at an event in January. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Raising the federal minimum wage would ease poverty for some workers, but cost others their job

Tracey Samuelson Jul 9, 2019
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi introduces the Raise the Wage Act at an event in January. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
HTML EMBED:
COPY

The federal minimum wage – currently at $7.25 an hour – hasn’t changed in a decade. The House of Representatives is preparing to vote on a Democratic proposal that would increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2025.

That change could lift 1.3 million people of out poverty and raise wages for some 27 million workers, according to a recent report by the Congressional Budget Office.

It could also cause an estimated 1.3 million Americans to lose their jobs.

Are those job losses worth the wage gains? Democrats and Republicans have different answers.

Click the audio player above to hear the full story.

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