Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson said he doesn’t have a problem with raising the minimum wage, but stopped short of offering a new guaranteed hourly rate.
“I don’t have any problems with raising the minimum wage,” Carson said on “Axios on HBO” in an interview that aired Sunday.
Carson said the market should dictate the minimum wage, which currently stands at $7.25 an hour.
He also said that the minimum wage should be indexed to allow for it to change as conditions do.
“It needs to be indexed, then you don’t keep having these arguments every 10 or 15 years,” Carson added.
When pressed on what the minimum wage should be, Carson said he’d leave it to the economists.
“I would allow the economists to do the indexing of what it should be now compared to what it was when it was set at that level, based on what the expenses are now versus what they were then,” he said.
“I don’t even want to offer a number because then it gets thrown out that Secretary Carson says the wage should be this,” he added.
Former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the leading Democratic presidential candidates, have both come out in support of raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour.
The Democratic-controlled House approved legislation in July to raise the minimum wage to $15 by 2025.