For What It's Worth

ThinkProgress on the House of Representatives' "efforts" to raise the minimum wage:

House conservatives passed a bill last week that combined a minimum wage hike with a dramatic cut to the estate tax (aka the Paris Hilton Tax).

By my calculations, the minimum wage hike will increase the incomes of full-time, minimum wage workers by $84 a week, or about $4,368 a year. This would bring their income up to just over $15,000 a year (assuming 40 hours per week and 52 weeks per year.)

By contrast, the heirs of multimillionaires would receive substantially more by way of benefits. Consider the heirs who stand to receive a $10 million fortune through married parents. Under the new proposed law they would receive a tax break of as much as $2.76 million (compared with the 2006 estate tax law.)

Put another way, the heirs of the $10 million estate would get a tax break worth as much as 183 years of the income of a full-time minimum wage earner.