The anchor you're looking for is the median wage. In the US, the minimum wage tends to be around 35-45% of the median wage, and is mostly harmless to employment

The anchor you're looking for is the median wage. In the US, the minimum wage tends to be around 35-45% of the median wage, and is mostly harmless to employment. In Chile, it hovers around 65% and the effects are more significant, while the distributional effects seem to be exhausted: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ilr.12007 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ilr.12007 https://take-profit.org/en/statistics/wages/chile/ https://take-profit.org/en/statistics/wages/chile/ Half the median wage is obviously the simplest answer, but some studies have suggested other numbers. Now you're probably wondering: what does the median wage have to do with a "level of living"? It's simply the presently existing normal "level of living"! The median wage reflects various aspects of the local economy, and is responsive to things like housing prices.