Economic Research: How Increasing Income Inequality Is Dampening U.S. Economic Growth, And Possible Ways To Change The Tide There is no shortage of proposals for tackling extreme income inequality. President Obama has proposed an increase in the hourly minimum wage to $10.10 from the current rate of $7.25, and the IMF recently called on lawmakers to boost the wage (though it refrained from suggesting a specific level). Managing Director Christine Lagarde said that doing so would help raise the incomes of millions of poor and working-class Americans and "would be helpful from a macroeconomic point of view" (58). An increase in the minimum wage would certainly carry with it short-term impacts, likely bringing 900,000 people above the poverty line in the second half of 2016--and, according to the CBO, lifting wages for 24 million workers at the next level above minimum wage. Fewer American households at or below the poverty line would also help bolster government balance sheets and likely improve state and local credit conditions. But raising the minimum wage is not without negative consequences. Reduced labor demands resulting from higher wages could reduce potential hires by 500,000 jobs, according to CBO estimates (59). Further, while 49% of those workers making the minimum wage are under age 25, the CATO Institute reports that, of older workers (the other half of minimum wage earners), 29.2% live in poverty and 46.2% live near the poverty level, with family incomes less than 1.5 times the poverty line (60). Apart from minimum wage discussions, a recent report from the OECD suggested that carried interest--the share of profits that money managers take in from an investment or fund--should be taxed as regular income rather than as returns on investment. Ian Ayres, professor of law at Yale, and Aaron S. Edlin, professor of law and economics at the University of California, Berkley, proposed an automatic extra tax, the so-called Brandeis tax, on the income of the top 1