Poll: Americans Overwhelmingly Support Increase in Minimum Wage

Americans are overwhelmingly in favor of raising the federal minimum wage, a new Gallup poll shows.

Asked if they would vote to raise the minimum wage from $7.25 to $9 an hour, 76% of poll respondents said yes—that’s up five percentage points from Gallup’s March poll asking the same question.

Support for the hike also crossed partisan lines. 91% of Democrats and 76% of Independents favored the hike, and while the increase had less support from Republicans, 58% still said they would vote for the $9 wage.

Asked if they would support the $9 wage with automatic increases tied to the inflation rate, 69% of poll respondents said yes.

Critics have blasted a call for a $9 minimum wage as not nearly enough, and MIT’s Living Wage Calculator shows that rate would still leave many without a living wage.

Recent research from the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) showed that “[i]f we measure inflation from 1968 forward using the same procedure we use today (the way we calculate inflation has been updated several times since the late 1960s), the 2013 value of the minimum wage would be $9.42—almost $2.25 higher than it is today.”

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