Consumer activist Ralph Nader believes the federal minimum wage should be raised to at least $10.50 an hour from $7.25 currently, and he maintains that such an increase would provide a lift to the economy.

"The U.S. has the lowest minimum wage in the Western world," he tells Yahoo. Raising the minimum wage would be like "a stimulus bill, . . . more sales, more jobs, more purchasing power for workers. A good deal of that money is going to go into places like Wal-Mart."

Indeed, the biggest employers of low-wage workers, such as Wal-Mart, Burger King, Target and McDonald's, would enjoy higher profits if workers had more income they could spend, Nader argues.

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He believes Wal-Mart will likely come around in support of a higher minimum wage soon.

The company already pays workers in Ontario, Canada, a minimum wage of $10.25, Nader notes. And in Washington, D.C., where Wal-Mart is aggressively building its presence, the minimum wage was recently raised to $11.50.

"Workers are paid the same wages from 46 years ago [adjusting for inflation]. It's time to restore the minimum wage," Nader maintains.

Meanwhile, Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, advocates an increase in the earned income tax credit rather than a minimum wage increase.

"If you could have a minimum wage of $15 and it didn't hurt anything else, I would love it," Buffett tells CNBC. "But clearly that isn't the case. . . . I think you can accomplish way more through the earned income tax credit without negative effects."

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