[jasonwatkinspdx]

Empirical evidence for the idea that raising the minimum wage in the US will lead to unemployment is quite weak. Those arguments may kick in at some point, but it's pretty clear we're way under the price level that would do that.

You're using some common rhetoric to reframe this entirely as one of personal volition. Just be like Ms Wait and pull yourself up the ladder. This is a form of the just world delusion, and ignores all the complex ways poverty can be a trap, or how people working at this end of the labor market are basically one roll of the dice away from financial ruin due to illness, car accident, etc.