Economists debate benefits, drawbacks to raising minimum wage

In his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama said he wants to raise the minimum wage from $7.25 to $9 an hour. Since then, economists and politicians have been debating the proposal.

House Speaker John Boehner said the proposal would mean job losses that the nation can't afford.

"When you raise the price of employment, guess what happens. You get less of it," he said in USA Today. "At a time when the American people are still asking the question, where are the jobs?"

Obama isn't facing just political opposition. Economists seem to be split on whether raising the minimum wage would help or hurt workers as well.

We speak with two economic experts on the costs and benefits of raising the minimum wage.

Michael Strain, research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, says the weight of the research shows that raising the minimum wage causes negative effects.

"The economic effects of minimum wage increases have been studied dozens and dozens of times in the past few decades," he wrote for Yahoo! Finance. "Different studies come to different conclusions, of course ... . The weight of the evidence suggests that increasing the minimum wage decreases employment, especially for lower-skilled workers."

Christine Owens, executive director of the National Employment Law Project, calls the warnings a "tired old canard trotted out every time a minimum wage proposal surfaces."

"The facts are otherwise: The most rigorous research over the last 15 years, including studies across state lines with different minimum wages, has found that higher minimum wages do not result in job loss, even for minimum wage increases during weak economic periods," she wrote for CNN. "The sooner we improve workers' wages, the sooner we'll see the economic recovery take off and our prolonged unemployment crisis fade. For all who'd like to take home more next year, here is a raise worth fighting for."

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE MINIMUM WAGE:

• Why we shouldn't raise the minimum wage. Strain writes that an increase in the minimum wage would make it harder for young and low-skill workers to find jobs. (Los Angeles Times)

• Poll: Minimum wage. (IGM Forum)

• Debate touches on pros and cons of raising state minimum wage. Two experts join Cathy Wurzer to debate increasing the minimum wage. (MPR News)

• To help jobs picture, raise the minimum wage. Owens says a worker's hourly wage would be "$3 higher if the minimum wage held the same value it did 40 years ago." (CNN)

• Watch President Obama explain his proposal to increase the minimum wage:

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