Driven by protests, U.S. minimum wage vaults onto agenda

Washington • The first question in Tuesday's GOP presidential debate — whether the minimum wage should go to $15 an hour — was the starkest evidence yet that U.S. workers have managed to thrust the issue of pay onto the presidential campaign agenda.

More than six years after the Great Recession ended, weak wage gains have helped fuel movements such as the "Fight for $15," whose supporters demonstrated outside the GOP debate in Milwaukee. Their efforts follow earlier proposals by President Barack Obama to raise the minimum to $10.10 an hour from its current level of $7.25.

Demands for higher pay may be resonating with more Americans because typical household incomes have been stagnant since the mid-1990s.

Here are some questions and answers about the minimum wage:

Does raising the minimum wage cost jobs? • That question has been the subject of a nearly religious dispute among economists for years.

One strand of research, spearheaded by economists Alan Krueger and David Card, has concluded that modest increases in the minimum don't necessarily cost jobs. Krueger and Card compared hiring at fast-food restaurants in New Jersey and neighboring Pennsylvania after New Jersey raised its minimum in 1992 and Pennsylvania did not.

They found that job gains were roughly the same in both states afterward.

Yet the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated in 2014 that a minimum wage of $10.10 an hour would lower employment by 500,000 jobs, or 0.3 percent of the nation's total.

What about $15? • At that level, more economists worry about job losses. Krueger, in fact, wrote in October that a $15 minimum "would put us in uncharted waters, and risk undesirable and unintended consequences."

Several large cities are phasing in $15 minimums over several years, including Los Angeles, Seattle and San Francisco.

But outside high-cost urban areas, a $15 minimum would be a heavier lift for many businesses.

What chances does the $15 minimum have to become law nationwide? • Not great. Republicans in Congress are generally opposed to Obama's call for a $10.10 minimum. And many congressional Democrats support lifting it to $12 by 2020.

What do the presidential candidates say? • On the Democratic side, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is in favor of a $15 minimum. ButHillary Clinton backs a $12 wage floor.

At Tuesday's GOP debate, Donald Trump and Ben Carson said they opposed a higher minimum. Most other GOP candidates agree.