# Obama plans to raise the min. wage to $9 an hour.

**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-plans-to-raise-the-min-wage-to-9-an-hour/650366
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [February 15, 2013, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-plans-to-raise-the-min-wage-to-9-an-hour/650366 "2013-02-15T03:33:15Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 128

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### Author: ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)
#### Post date: [February 19, 2013, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-plans-to-raise-the-min-wage-to-9-an-hour/650366/128 "2013-02-19T05:49:35Z")

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> [@septimus](#):
>
> The fact that demand for lowest-wage workers is known to be quite _inelastic_, suggests that the wage is not too high. Perhaps there’s some “sweet spot” for the elasticity coefficient.

Setting minimum wage high does not affect only lowest-wage workers. All those people who are currently earning between $7.26/hr and $9-10/hr will have to have raises in proportion. Also quite a few contracts specify wages in multiple of minimum wage. So a union worker who currently earns $29/hr will all of a sudden get a raise to $36/hr. That’s quite a jump. The effect will be much bigger than what you expect.

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