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A new poll shows deep support for raising the minimum wage in Wisconsin and majority support for increasing it to $10.10 an hour.

The results of the latest "Wisconsin Economic Scorecard" from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee track closely with previous statewide and national surveys on the question.

But chances of boosting the Wisconsin minimum by nearly $3 are all but nonexistent. Gov. Scott Walker has reaffirmed his opposition to an increase, and a Democrat-backed proposal to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 has gotten no traction in the Republican-controlled Legislature.

Seventy-seven percent of registered voters polled by UWM said they support an increase in the minimum. The university's Center for Urban Initiatives and Research conducted the survey this month. The center polls state residents every quarter on economic issues.

Asked specifically about raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour, 57% expressed support.

A Marquette University Law School poll in January found 62% of Wisconsin registered voters in favor of an unspecified increase. National surveys by Bloomberg News and The Wall Street Journal/NBC, meanwhile, have shown large majorities of Americans supporting a boost to $10.10.

President Barack Obama has been pushing for an increase to that level nationwide.

In Wisconsin, there is significant support even among Republicans and business owners for an unspecified hike in the minimum wage, the UWM survey shows.

The latest poll found 52% of Republican registered voters in favor, and the UWM poll in December found support among 61% of voters with a business owner in their household. In both cases, the survey margin of error for those groups of respondents was wide — about 10 percentage points in either direction.

Last raised in 2009, the federal minimum wage stands at $7.25 an hour.

Advocates of a boost say it would alleviate poverty and moderate the country's increasing concentration of wealth and income. Opponents say a hike would kill jobs and that companies would pass their increased costs on to consumers.

"For the more than half a million Wisconsin residents who would see their wages go up if we passed the bill for $10.10, it's a real economic tool that we can use to pull people out of poverty," said Rep. Cory Mason (D-Racine), sponsor of the legislation to raise the wage here.

Scott Manley, vice president of government relations for business lobbying group Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, said the minimum wage primarily affects younger, entry level workers. An increase could reduce job opportunities for them and "only make a difficult employment situation worse," Manley said.

He also pointed to a recent WMC survey showing that voter support for raising the minimum wage dropped significantly when people were told that a recent economic study found that an increase to $10.10 would cost Wisconsin 27,000 jobs.

The study was published by the Employment Policies Institute, which The New York Times recently identified as being run by a public relations firm that also represents the restaurant industry — a staunch opponent of raising the minimum.

A report in February by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that increasing the minimum wage to $10.10 would reduce total employment nationwide by about 500,000 workers.

On the other hand, the CBO estimated, about 16.5 million workers would see their pay increase.

The UWM poll was a random telephone survey of adult Wisconsin residents conducted March 3-7. Both landline and mobile phones were included. The minimum-wage questions were put to 407 registered voters. The margin of error for that sample is plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.