One CBO report: Two fast, political reactions

Washington (CNN) – Republicans and Democrats reacted with lightning speed and polarizing conclusions to a new report on the minimum wage released Tuesday.

To the GOP, it is evidence that Democrats' policies would cut jobs; to Democrats, it shows that Republicans' ideas would keep more people in poverty.

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The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office posted its report on the potential effects of a minimum wage increase at 2 p.m. Eastern time.

By 2:15, Brendan Buck, press secretary for House Speaker John Boehner, was charging forward, e-mailing about CBO's conclusion on jobs. The agency found that increasing the minimum wage from $7.25 currently to $10.10 by 2016 would cost 500,000 workers their jobs.

"This report confirms what we've long known: while helping some, mandating higher wages has real costs, including fewer people working," Buck wrote.

Other conservative responses started flying, casting Democrats and their push for a minimum wage increase as anti-jobs.

"Democrats continue their insatiable quest to pass heavy-handed government policies that are costing jobs," wrote Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, who heads the Senate Republican Conference.

The White House, which has renewed its push for a minimum wage increase, openly rejected the CBO's jobs findings.

"Those estimates do not reflect the consensus view of economists," said Jason Furman, chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers told reporters on a phone call.

The White House said the CBO report underestimates positive labor effects from a minimum wage increase, things like higher worker retention and lower absenteeism.

Other Democrats pointed to a different part of the report - the CBO conclusion that a $10.10 minimum wage would pull 900,000 Americans out of poverty.

"No matter how the critics spin this report, the CBO made it absolutely clear: raising the minimum wage would lift almost one million Americans out of poverty," House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi wrote in a statement.

For Democrats, the report hit on their income inequality fault line, showing that 16.5 million low-wage workers would see their incomes jump.

"Hard-working Americans deserve a raise, and this new report shows that over 16 million Americans will receive a raise from an increase in the minimum wage," wrote Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D- Nevada, in his own statement.

The CBO report found that while lower- and middle-income Americans would gain income overall, that Americans at the upper end of the scale would likely lose income because of a minimum wage increase.