Hillary Clinton opened the debate by reiterating her support for hiking the minimum wage on Monday.
"I also want to make the economy more fair. That starts with raising the national minimum wage," she said during the NBC debate.
Clinton has yet to embrace the $15 minimum wage that has long been the target of liberal activists and political powerhouse Service Employees International Union (SEIU). She divided the party base during the Democratic primary by being the only candidate who did not back doubling the federal minimum of $7.25. She endorsed a $12 minimum wage while running against socialist Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley.
She warned that any federal increase above $12 would lead to "job loss and dislocation" in November. She backed off of those claims in March, telling supporters in Everett, Washington, that "there is no evidence that the minimum wage being increased costs jobs."
An analysis from the Heritage Foundation found that a $15 minimum wage would eliminate 7 million jobs, while a separate study from the Employment Policies Institute found that $12 would kill 800,000 jobs. EPI Research Director Michael Saltsman told the Washington Free Beacon that the consensus among economists consistently finds that higher minimum wages lead to job losses.
"Clinton can't decide if she supports a $12 or $15 minimum wage, but I can save her the trouble of picking one—they're both terrible ideas," he said. "Clinton’s support for a higher minimum wage might play well on the debate stage, but it's bad news for the employees she's trying to help."
Clinton has made the wage hike a centerpiece of her attacks on Trump. She and Democratic Super PACs have highlighted his November 2015 assertion that "wages are too high" in attack ads and on the campaign trail.
Trump has changed position on the minimum wage at various stages of the race, wavering between not raising the wage or dismissing the question. Trump announced in July that he would support a $10 hourly minimum wage—a nearly 40 percent hike. A Congressional Budget Office study of the $10.10 wage endorsed by President Obama would eliminate 500,000 jobs.