WASHINGTON – The White House says President Barack Obama’s executive order to increase the minimum wage on new federal contract workers will likely impact a “couple hundred thousand” people.
That’s according to White House spokesman Jay Carney. Obama announced the measure in his State of the Union address Tuesday, but officials would not say at the time how many people would be impacted by the increase in the hourly pay rate from $7.25 to $10.10.
Carney says the White House estimate is imprecise because the executive order Obama will sign is still being finalized. Most of the 2.2 million federal contractors already make more than $10.10.
Obama’s order won’t take effect until 2015 at the earliest and doesn’t affect existing federal contracts, only new ones.
