WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama argued in his State of the Union address that it was time to raise the federal minimum wage to $9 per hour and peg it to inflation, so that "no one who works full time should have to live in poverty."
In doing so, Obama made a somewhat surprising -- and apparently enjoyable -- reference to his vanquished GOP presidential challenger, Mitt Romney.
"Working folks shouldn’t have to wait year after year for the minimum wage to go up while CEO pay has never been higher," Obama said. "So here’s an idea that Governor Romney and I actually agreed on last year: let’s tie the minimum wage to the cost of living, so that it finally becomes a wage you can live on."
The line was a reference to an off-the-cuff remark on the minimum wage that Romney made during a campaign event early last year. When asked if he supported the idea of boosting the minimum wage, Romney said it should be linked to the consumer price index -- much like Obama proposed in his address Tuesday.
"My view has been to allow the minimum wage to rise with the [Consumer Price Index] or with another index so that it adjusts automatically over time," Romney said, according to a video shot by a staffer at the National Employment Law Project Action Fund, which advocates a higher minimum wage.
The comment invited blowback from conservatives, including pundit Larry Kudlow and The Wall Street Journal editorial page, which questioned why a GOP candidate would advocate for effectively raising the minimum wage. Higher minimum wages, many conservatives argue, squeeze businesses and force employers to cut back on hiring and hours.
Romney later tried to backpedal, saying the economic recovery wasn't a good time to hike the wage floor -- even though the minimum wage would rise nearly every year with a cost-of-living adjustment.
Ten states already have cost-of-living adjustments attached to their state minimum wages, unlike the federal minimum wage, which remains $7.25 per hour. The federal rate has not been raised since 2009, after the last of a series of increases signed into law by President George W. Bush.
Advocates for higher minimum wages consider a cost-of-living adjustment something of a holy grail, since it would remove the need to re-legislate a new minimum wage every few years. As it is now, the federal minimum wage tends to lose its purchasing power each year because of inflation.
If the minimum wage had kept pace with inflation since its historic high in real value during the late 1960s, it would now be roughly $10 per hour.
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