[crdoconnor]

>How do you decide what the appropriate level is, gut feeling?

I would keep raising it incrementally until inflation hits around 4-5%.

This is probably the simplest, most effective way of solving the income inequality problem. Minimum wage hikes cut in to the bottom line first and prices second. There's a lot of profit at the top that an just be redirected to the bottom by increasing the minimum wage - barely even affecting the middle classes.

>why are we devaluing the completed labor of the lowest wage classes?

So the value of their labor above and beyond which they are compensated for can be extracted and redistributed - mostly in the form of profits.

This is done via outsourcing (lowering the demand for domestic labor), austerity (e.g. leaving portland's pothole fixing to the anarchists) and slashing benefits like SNAP/ unemployment (lowering the negotiating leverage of workers).

[dnautics]

> So the value of their labor above and beyond which they are compensated for can be extracted and redistributed - mostly in the form of profits.

I don't think that is the working model. The value of labor is decreased by government policy because it's believed that wages are sticky and decreasing the wage value will lead to greater employment macroeconomically.

Yes, the downstream effect is that we line the pockets of corporations and the already wealthy, but the justification and motivation for it is progressive social policy.