Billionaire Warren Buffett said the level of income inequality in the U.S. is “extraordinary” but that raising the minimum wage isn’t 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 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 $7.25 an hour since July 2009, “would hurt the poor.”