[allhailkatt]

Because single mothers exist, so supporting a family on one income is needed to ensure a minimal amount of suffering happens to children who didn't ask to be poor, and have no way of opting out of poverty.

Also, modest = minimal by the original standards.

Historical context: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/minimum_wage

[ggg9990]

It's much better to identify single mothers and make sure their kids are OK with welfare than make the national minimum wage enough to do so.

[will_hughes]

Better for whom?

[ggg9990]

Better for the people paying the wages and the other consumers of those people's goods and services, and for workers who are employable only at particularly low wages.