This clown is making a pretty myopic argument. The weakest part by far (paraphrasing): "Since food service worker productivity hasn't increased over the past

This clown is making a pretty myopic argument. The weakest part by far (paraphrasing): "Since food service worker productivity hasn't increased over the past 27 years, neither should their wages." So when you sit down at a restaurant in 2014 compared to 1987, you're paying significantly more for your dinner. Why? The owner has higher operating costs in 2014 than in 1987. Fuel costs more, which means the production and delivery of fresh food to his restaurant is more expensive. Rent is also higher. This isn't complicated, I'm basically describing the effects of inflation. So even though the restaurant isn't any more productive for its customers in 2014, it costs significantly more, because the restaurant owner is passing off his rising costs to the customers. I'm sure if you pointed this out to Mr. Dorfman, he'd be fine with it. The system works! But as soon as we suggest raising the cook's wages in proportion with the owner's profits and the customer's bill, he gets enraged, starts sputtering about government forcing business to give handouts to greedy lazy bottom-feeders (who aren't actually poor, apparently?). In reality, there's only one difference between the restaurant owner and the cook: The owner has leverage to increase the amount of money he gets (raising the price of a sandwich), while the cook doesn't. Neither the owner nor the cook has increased productivity whatsoever in the past 27 years, and expecting significant gains would be insane. The restaurant industry has been around for millennia with only a handful of major improvements to productivity, none of which have happened in the past 30 years. Yet somehow, this is solely the fault of the cook. From the comments section, a telling quote from this imbecile: "Why is it 'true' that full time work should be enough to meet all your basic needs (which is undefined anyway)?" ...you don't need an undergraduate Econ degree to answer that one. If you're working full time and it's not enough to support your basic needs, you're going to die.