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Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, who remarked yesterday that he doesn’t care about the poor, supports indexing the minimum wage to inflation. If the minimum wage had been indexed since its last increase in July 2009 it would be $7.60 instead of $7.25. If it had been indexed to inflation since 1978 it would be almost $9.00 today.
The Democrats have historically been the major proponents of a higher minimum wage ever since a federal minimum wage law was first instituted in 1938. It will be interesting to see if President Obama or other leaders in the Democratic Party feel the need to respond to Romney’s proposal.