万花筒 2008-09-19&09-20 美国提升最低工资标准（在线收听）

Millions of Americans are getting raised today. Not you, Jon. The federal minimum wage's increasing by 70 cents. The jump from $5.85 to $6.55 an hour is the second of three annual increases that were required by law. Next year's boost will bring the minimum wage to $7.25 with higher food and gas prices though. Is this really gonna stimulate the economy, what's it gonna do for people who are getting it. Let's talk to Charles Payne, he's CEO of Wall Street Strategies, also the author of “Be Smart, Act Fast, Get Rich”.

Charles, Good to see you.

You, too

Let's, a couple of different constituencies we wanna talk about the workers, employers and the consumers. But let's start with people who are getting this raise. I mean it is not all that impressive if you take a look when it is adjusted for inflation. What does it do for people?

Well, Jane, you are absolutely right, but considering the fact that it hadn't been adjusted for a very long period of time, this is a step in the right direction from their point of view. You know I gotta tell you this is a non-event in thirty states, there are actually thirty states who already have higher minimum wages, but this will impact two million people, two million Americans, half of which have full time jobs, so it's small, but it's a step in the right direction for them.

And for business owners, you know, plenty of them are out saying today well you know what this means, this just means I am gonna have to increase my prices so that means it affects the rest of us.

You know, I gotta tell you when it was announced I sort of felt that same way. But, listen, energy prices are up 25 percent this year alone. I think most businesses are probably gonna have more things to grapple with particularly commodities prices than this higher wage, so if a business does raise its prices and complains them on this, I think consumers might walk. Consumers certainly don't want to hear and they're not gonna really feel too sorry for business that's paying $6.55

Yeah, you know bottom line with more money in people's pockets, I mean, doing something like this, could it stimulate the economy at all.

Yeah, you know, I gotta tell you we had this massive economic stimulus package that just hit the mailboxes over the last few months and there's not a lot of evidence that's even having a real big impact, already on Capitol Hill, they are talking about a second stimulus package. It's just so much of it is being offset particularly with the price of gasoline that it’s really, really hard for it to seep into the economy the way that the planners hope that it would.

Charles Payne, CEO of Wall Street Strategies. Charles, good to see you. Thanks.

You too. Thanks.