Billionaire Warren Buffett said the level of income inequality in the United States is extraordinary" but that raising the minimum wage is not the best solution.
"I don't have anything against raising the minimum wage but I don’t think you can do it in a significant enough way without creating a lot of distortions,” Buffett, 84, Berkshire Hathaway Inc's chief executive officer, said on Saturday at the company's annual shareholders meeting in Omaha, Nebraska. Those distortions “would cost a whole lot of jobs," Buffett said.
Answering questions alongside Buffett, Charles Munger, 91, Berkshire's vice chairman, said raising the federal minimum wage, which has been US$7.25 an hour since July 2009, "would hurt the poor."
Some large companies have recently announced plans to raise wages for their lowest-paid workers.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc, the country's largest private employer, announced a plan in February to begin paying all of its US hourly workers at least $9 an hour in April and $10 an hour by next February. The move will result in raises for about 500,000 workers in the first half of the current fiscal year and cost about $1 billion, the Bentonville, Arkansas-based company said in February.
Berkshire held 67.7 million Wal-Mart shares as of Dec 31, a stake with a value of about $5.3 billion based at Friday's closing price. Senate Republicans last year blocked legislation that would have raised the minimum wage nationally to $10.10 an hour from $7.25.
Job killer
President Barack Obama and Senate Democrats say that lifting the minimum would benefit the economy and reduce income inequality. Many Republicans and business groups say the plan would cost jobs.
Buffett, the second-richest person in the US, said raising the minimum wage was “a form of price fixing” and instead favored reforming the earned income tax credit, a refund paid to low and moderate income individuals and couples.
The US jobless rate has dropped 1.2 percentage points from the end of 2013 to 5.5% in March, close to the level that Federal Reserve policy makers consider full employment. But lower unemployment has not translated into wage gains for many Americans.
“Everyone who is willing to work should have a reasonably decent livelihood in a country like the United States. How that is best achieved, I’m actually going to write something on that soon,” Buffett said.
Tax credits
Buffett has said repeatedly that tax refunds are better for the economy and workers than forcing companies to increase wages.
"The earned income tax credit is much clearer," Buffett said in an interview with CNBC last year. "That puts more money in the pockets of people who are working for low wages."
Almost 28 million US taxpayers received the EITC in the 2013 tax year, according to IRS data in December. The payments totaled more than $66 billion and the average amount nationwide was about $2,407.
Berkshire employed 340,499 workers, as of Dec 31, according to Buffett’s annual report to shareholders. Last year the billionaire investor told CNBC that "very, very few" of them make minimum wage.