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$22 minimum wage: Could it pass Congress?

$22 minimum wage, per hour, is an idea that Sen. Elizabeth Warren raised at a recent hearing. President Obama has suggested raising the rate from the current $7.25 to $9.

Should the minimum wage be $22 an hour? That鈥檚 what Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D) of Massachusetts suggested at a recent hearing of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.

Here鈥檚 her logic: If you took the minimum wage from 1960 and indexed it for workers鈥� gains in productivity, it would be $22 an hour today. And why shouldn鈥檛 employees reap the benefits of their own improved labor practices?, she asked at the hearing, rhetorically. Today, the actual minimum wage is $7.25 an hour.

鈥淲hat happened to the other $14.75? It sure didn鈥檛 go to the worker,鈥� .

Those gains went to corporate and top-executive profits, said a witness at the hearing, Arindrajit Dube, an economist from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. That鈥檚 simply more evidence of how income inequality has grown in America, he said.

鈥淚t is quite remarkable that had the minimum wage kept up with overall productivity, it would have been $22 per hour in 2011,鈥� Dr. Dube said . 鈥淗ad it kept up with the growth in income going to the top 1 percent, it would have been even higher, at $24 per hour; and the wage would have exceeded $33 per hour at its peak in 2007.鈥�

Hold on a second there, economic conservatives: Neither Warren nor Dube was actually suggesting raising the minimum wage that high as a matter of public policy. Doing so in one go would crash companies and destroy jobs.

鈥淩ather, the exercise demonstrates how different the growth rates have been for incomes going to those at the bottom of the labor market as compared to the economy as a whole and to those at the top end of the distribution,鈥� Dube said.

The fact is that even tacking a few bucks on to today鈥檚 $7.25 minimum wage would be a hard political lift. It鈥檚 almost certain to face stiff opposition in the GOP-controlled House.

President Obama in his State of the Union message suggested raising the rate to $9. He鈥檚 still pushing that, saying Monday at the introduction of his new nominee for secretary of Labor, Thomas Perez, that 鈥渁 minimum wage should be a wage that you can live on.鈥�

Sen. Tom Harkin (D) of Iowa has introduced legislation that would push the minimum wage even a bit higher, to $10.10.

鈥淲e don鈥檛 want minimum-wage workers left behind and left out of this recovery,鈥� he said last week when introducing the legislation.

But those who employ many low-wage workers are adamantly opposed to something that they say would cost some employment.

Going from $7.25 to $10.10 is almost a 40 percent wage increase, noted David Rutigliano, a partner in SBC Restaurant Group of Shelton, Conn., at the Senate Health panel hearing.

鈥淎t a time when many businesses are struggling to keep their doors open and in some cases employers are forgoing their own paychecks to avoid laying off employees, mandating wage increases will only hurt those employees which his proposal seeks to help,鈥� in his own prepared statement.