I am totally for a living wage, I'm just against JUST raising the minimum wage (significantly and quickly) like has been done recently.
Min wage where I live for instance was 10$/hr just 4-5 years ago. Meanwhile rent was HALF what it is now for the same place (sometimes less). Now min wage is 13.50, but rent for a 1 bedroom is $1200 instead of $600.
Food has gone up drastically in cost as well, along with most other things. We have 11% sales tax as well, which makes the higher costs even worse.
In addition, most low tier jobs (that were above min wage), have NOT raised significantly if at all, and certainly not enough to compensate for the cost of living.
Home health aids as an example used to make $13 an hour, required 3 months of training and you had to spend $600 as well.
They now make $14 an hour, same requirements. Literally 50 cents more than minimum wage.
They actually probably got a raise in seattle etc, where min wage is $15, but it's just an example, the same thing is happening to people there who were making $15-16 an hour or less before.
Meanwhile, they made that much money before all this, but spent 1/2 as much on expenses. Life is significantly harder for them now than it was before.
As a quite example Tacoma where I lived had a $10 min wage till Jan 1st 2017, less than 4 years later we are at 13.50 min wage, a 35% increase. While this could be a good thing if done right, it most certainly has not been one.
You don't know what you're talking about. Cost of living keeps going up regardless of minimum wage changes. They don't have much to do with each other. ---