Ben Carson proposed a two-tiered minimum wage Wednesday night, arguing that young people looking for their first job should be able to work for less money.
The Republican presidential candidate, ranked second in the Washington Examiner‘s presidential power rankings, said during the GOP debate at the Reagan Presidential Library that there should be both a “starter and a sustained” minimum wage. The starter wage would be lower.
“How are young people ever going to get a job if you have such a high minimum wage that it makes it impractical to hire them?” Carson asked.
The former pediatric neurosurgeon also indicated an openness to raising the minimum wage, which is currently set at $7.25 hourly at the federal level.
In doing so, he departed from the majority of Republican candidates, who have argued against such an increase.
Nevertheless, he called for negotiations with Democrats “for a reasonable minimum wage and index that so that we never have to have this again in the conversation in the history of America.”
President Obama and congressional Democrats have tried to pass legislation indexing the minimum wage to inflation, a move that would see the wage floor automatically increase as consumer costs rose.
Indexing the minimum wage would prevent future Congresses from having to pass new legislation raising the wage.
Last Congress, Obama and Democrats sought a raise of the wage to $10.10 hourly, indexed to inflation.
This year, the administration and top Democrats raised that target to $12.
Carson, however, declined to say whether an increase was justified or what size hike he would support. The minimum wage “probably or possibly” should be raised, he said.
In the earlier debate, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum endorsed a 50-cent increase in the minimum wage.
