> The bare minimum standard we should hold ourselves to is that a 40 hour work week should be able to put a roof over your head and food on your table Absolute

> The bare minimum standard we should hold ourselves to is that a 40 hour work week should be able to put a roof over your head and food on your table Absolutely, but it seems to me that as long as companies have A) the option to not hire people and/or B) ways to side-step minimum wage with non-US labor, minimum wage won't achieve that goal for everyone. It will enable the goal for a few and the rest will have a 0 hour work week and a harder time getting any type of job. But there's the other side of the question - why is a roof over your head and food on your table getting so expensive? That's what needs to be addressed. High rent/housing/food costs prevent cheap labor. There's no point in raising minimum wage to $20/hr if the price of food and rent keeps going up.