[trentnix]

Minimum wage goes up and buying power goes down as a result. This is the exact spiral that was predicted and dismissed as wrongthink. It has turned into another example of the Law of Salutary Contradiction:

  The Law of Salutary Contradiction states that when an event or policy is initially dismissed as impossible or a conspiracy theory, it is later acknowledged as occurring—but framed as beneficial and morally justified.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

This is false. When making a prediction like "X goes up and thus Y goes down", it matters what the relative changes are. The naysayers of increases in minimum wage say things like "if minimum wage goes up by $2.50, the cost of a fast food burger will become out of reach". In fact, the labor cost component of a fast food burger is minimal, and its price need only go up by a couple of cents in response (if, indeed, given the parent corporation's profits, it needs to go up at all).

Most serious studies of minumum wage effects conclude that while it does create upward price pressure, the results are small changes. It is essentially a redistributive, rather than inflationary, mechanism.

[trentnix]

> In fact, the labor cost component of a fast food burger is minimal

Only if you are considering the wages of the employees at the fast food restaurant. But when it extends to employees involved in the logistics, processing, and farming its no longer minimal.

Tangentially, calling the rise in wages a "living wage" in SF/DC/NYC/etc. is folly to begin with and reveals minimum wage laws are based on sloganeering and not an economic analysis.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

Employees involved in logistics are already likely earning more than minimum wage. Those involved in processing and farming likely do not live in the same jurisdictions.

Anyway ...

The basic idea is pretty simple: if you work 40 hours a week on minimum wage, you should be able to rent a reasonable condition 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom apartment relatively close to where you work.

That's not a "slogan", it's an idea that's been nominally central to The American Dream for more than a half century (but also largely untrue for the last few decades in many metropolitan areas).

Do you oppose this idea?

[BugsJustFindMe]

The current expert consensus is that minimum wage increases do not meaningfully impact prices. If you want you can read more about it at https://www.reddit.com/r/Economics/wiki/faq_minwage/ which includes inline references.

[throwaway132448]

That’s just a way for sulking conspiracy theorists to say “I told you so” after they’ve moved their own goalposts 50 times and have broken-clocked their way into validating their own genius.

P.S. There are way too many variables for you to draw that kind of causation from the correlation, and you’re very naive to think you could.