i do understand what he means; you put in the sweat year over year and have merit increase from $9 to $15/hr then eventually there is COLA and that same $9 job starts off at $13 now and your making $15.
I worked myself up to a pretty hefty base due to tenure and not too long before i left, they raised the meager starting salary (which i endured)
by $10k; that equated to 5 years of increases half my career there; someone just walked in the door and is already making almost as much as myself (on base).
You're starting to get it, but that isn't the reason. I don't care what discretionary measure a company takes to increase its base.
When you've worked hard for a time at a fairly skilled job, and you're on the cusp of being middle class America at $15/hr, then all of a sudden the law changes and we're at a $10/hr minimum, you have just ensured a lot more people are at the poverty line.
If you're making 15, and they raise it to 10, you're poor again.
I care a lot more about the hard working talented people making 15 than I care about those making minimum wage.
If you set minimum wage to $100/hr after a few years when everything sorted it's self out, people making $100/hr would still live paycheck to paycheck. Not be able to save for retirement.
We're always going to have poor people. They're not poor because they don't make much money, they're poor because of how they live their lives.
It's not an income issue it is a decision making issue.
You ever seen that documentary where they gave the poor guy 100 grand?
He blew it all. He was no better off after it.
There are plenty of stories out there of poor people who win a few hundred thousand dollars in the lottery, after a few years they're worse off.
You can't fix poverty with more money. Unless you're willing to dictate to people how they spend it.
Now, you could take a successful person, take everything he has, and there is a damn good chance he will rebuild his wealth.