Billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban has advocated raising the U.S. federal minimum wage to $20 an hour, calling the current $7.25 rate insufficient for workers to meet living costs. Cuban highlighted the wage gap in a recent X post, emphasizing that tens of millions of Americans earn wages that leave them below the poverty line despite record corporate profits and trillion-dollar market valuations, according to fortune.com.
Cuban pointed out that in some states, workers earn as little as $5.15 per hour for jobs such as bussing tables and stocking shelves. He described it as embarrassing that employees of companies he invested in needed government assistance, prompting him to ensure those workers received raises. Cuban noted his role in creating at least a thousand millionaires and expressed his commitment to increasing that number by improving worker pay.
The current federal minimum wage of $7.25 amounts to roughly $15,080 annually based on a 40-hour workweek, far below the average American salary of about $60,000. With over 40 million Americans relying on food stamps amid rising living costs, Cuban’s call for a $20 minimum wage underscores growing concerns about income inequality and the adequacy of wages in the U.S. labor market.
Cuban’s comments come amid ongoing debates over wage standards and labor rights in the U.S. His public stance adds to the discourse on how to address poverty and worker compensation, with the federal minimum wage unchanged since 2009, as reported by fortune.com.