Once again, everything said here applies to the minimum wage too. The minimum wage kills jobs. A position that provides $5 of value per hour can exist if you

Once again, everything said here applies to the minimum wage too. The minimum wage kills jobs. A position that provides $5 of value per hour can exist if you pay people $4, but it can't exist in the US because we have a minimum wage above $5. As you say, that is a pure numbers question and I have no problem with the math. I would have a moral objection if someone proposed that we abolish the minimum wage to fight unemployment because I think a job should provide for a certain quality of life in a developed nation. Jobs that can't provide that quality of life shouldn't exist. The motivation behind the minimum wage is so people can supposedly afford all those things that you highlighted as things people "deserve". The reason employees "deserve" to get benefits from their employer and not housing is because we as a society have decided that an employer's role is to provide things like health insurance and not housing. That decision is mostly arbitrary in hindsight, but it is the system in which we live. I would be happy if we decided to change that and disconnect health insurance from employment, but that is a harder fight than just mandating employers provide it. You are making perfect the enemy of the good in this situation. When the difference between the two is millions of people continuing to suffer for years if not decades, we should go for the quick good over the hypothetical long delayed perfection.