WASHINGTON — President Obama’s plan to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour would wipe out about 500,000 jobs by late 2016, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
The agency’s findings dealt a blow to the president’s push to raise the current minimum wage of $7.25 per hour.
The CBO cautioned that its estimates of job losses were subject to wide fluctuation and could come in lower than 500,000 and as high as 1 million.
“In CBO’s assessment, there is about a two-thirds chance that the effect would be in the range between a very slight reduction in employment and a reduction in employment of one million workers,” it said in a report Tuesday.
The report hardened already stiff resistance from House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio).
“This report confirms what we’ve long known: while helping some, mandating higher wages has real costs, including fewer people working. With unemployment Americans’ top concern, our focus should be creating — not destroying — jobs,” said Boehner spokesman Brendan Buck.
Republicans pointed out the report contradicted Obama’s claim in a Dec. 4 speech that “there’s no solid evidence that a higher minimum wage costs jobs.”