Support broad for $9 minimum wage

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PRINCETON, N.J., March 7 (UPI) -- Seventy-one percent of U.S. adults age 18 or older support raising the federal minimum wage to $9 an hour, a Gallup poll issued Thursday indicated.

More than 90 percent of respondents identifying themselves as Democrats indicated support for the idea, while Republicans were "evenly split on the proposal," and conservatives "tilt slightly in favor" of raising the minimum wage, Gallup said.

The strongest support for raising the minimum wage was among "non-whites earning less than $24,000 annually, women, young adults, residents of the East and moderates," Gallup said.

President Barack Obama has proposed bring the minimum wage to $9 by the end of 2015.

"Let's declare that in the wealthiest nation on Earth, no one who works full time should have to live in poverty," he said in his State of the Union address in January.

The federal minimum wage is currently $7.25 per hour, and a jump to $9 would be the single-largest adjustment in the minimum wage ever passed by Congress.

The past three adjustments were 70 cents each, and these were the largest adjustments ever at the time, the last increase coming in 2009, Gallup said.

The minimum wage survey was conducted March 2-3 and included 1,028 surveys of adults aged 18 or older across the country.

The survey's margin of error was 4 percentage points, Gallup said.