President's Minimum Wage Plan Has Businesses Talking
DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) - President Barack Obama's call for increasing the nation's minimum wage rate to $10 an hour is generating quite a bit of discussion in North Texas.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 400,000 Texas workers receive the current minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.
There are thousands more working in various jobs earning less than $10 an hour.
SMU economics Professor Mike Davis said claims of high levels of job cuts with higher wages may be overstated, and talk of decreasing poverty is also unfounded.
"We know that an increase in minimum wage isn't going to cause mass unemployment, or anything like that, but it would hurt particular people," according to Davis. "The least skilled workers would lose jobs because of an increase in minimum wage, nor will increase do anything to reduce poverty."
Davis said that thousands of minimum wage earners are teenagers and college students in middle income families.
Currently, seven of Dallas County's more than six thousand employees make less than $11 an hour.
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