Strikes and protests push Obama to raise federal contractors’ minimum wage

President Obama signed an executive order today raising the minimum wage for hundreds of thousands of federal contractors from $7.25 to $10 and 10 cents an hour. The wage hike only applies to new contracts, not existing ones, and doesn’t go into effect until 2015. The President also called on Congress to pass a bill raising pay for all workers, noting that current wages have less purchasing power than they did in the 1960s. But such a move faces stiff opposition from Conservatives, many of whom favor keeping pay where it is now, and some of whom want to do away with a minimum wage entirely. On Capitol Hill, our correspondent Alice Ollstein has the details.