Obama renews call for increase in minimum wage

MILWAUKEE (AP) - President Barack Obama renewed his push for Congress to raise the minimum wage Monday in a buoyant accounting of the economy's "revving" performance, delivered on behalf of Democrats opening their fall campaigns for the midterm congressional elections.<br /> <br /> "America deserves a raise," he told a union crowd in Milwaukee, vowing to keep a hard sell on Congress in much the way he once courted his wife. "I just wore her down," he cracked.<br /> <br /> Timing his push to Labor Day, the traditional start of the autumn campaign, Obama aggressively drew attention to recent economic gains, setting aside past caution on that subject.<br /> <br /> "By almost every measure the American economy and American workers are better off than when I took office," he said, rattling off a string of improving economic indicators even while acknowledging not all people are benefiting. "The engines," he said, "are revving a little louder."<br /> <br /> It was, at least indirectly, a pep talk for Democrats facing tough races in a nation still gripped with economic anxieties.<br /> <br /> The emphasis on the minimum wage is designed to draw campaign contrasts with Republicans, many of whom maintain that an increase would hurt small businesses and slow down hiring. No one expects Congress to act on it before the November elections.<br /> <br /> Despite the absence of a federal increase, 13 states raised their minimum wages at the beginning of this year. Those states have added jobs at a faster pace than those that did not raise the wage, providing a counterpoint to a Congressional Budget Office report earlier this year that projected that a higher minimum wage of $10.10 an hour could cost the nation 500,000 jobs.

http://accesswdun.com/article/2014/9/279039