This article could be something very simple and short because there is one way to prove the legitimacy of a new minimum wage very easily; That is purely inflation numbers plus an evolved CPI. But that wouldn’t be enough of an explanation, would it? You see, this argument of raising the minimum wage in the USA has been going on for quite some time because the last time it was raised was in 2009 to $7.25. It has been 16 years since any sort of raise and this is enduring two major recessions, major shifts in the housing, car, education, tech and oil markets and also an entire generation has gone by without an increase. So, how is it that there has not been a federal minimum wage increase in the USA at all? Why is it that the wages are stagnant but the market has expanded exponentially? You could start with the argument that many states have raised their minimum wages to answer this, which is completely legal and true. Though it still does not answer to what it means on a country-wide basis. There are also many minimum wage + tips sort of laws state by state which dictates wages must either be equal to or exceed with the tipped wage. There are also some other factors here that underlie the lack of an increase that are not willingly talked about due to certain interests in keeping the labor market controlled. Probably the major thing here is that the cost of living is measured in a completely out of touch way as well. This is alongside the other factor of how the younger generations now have access to what is termed as “budget luxury” or living in basic poverty with luxury items. These things have all contributed to making calculating the cost of living extremely erratic because of certain markers just not matching common prices or that prices are not static. This also has skewed the job market wildly with everyone trying to be some sort of influencer in the USA. There is various platforms to do this on and it is increasingly inflated, whether it is Twitch, YouTube, Snapchat, X, Instagram, TikTok, OnlyFans or even the alternative media platforms like Rumble. This makes the regular job market deflated in several ways. So, now I will dive individually into each one and try to give as much depth as possible to it.

Ok, firstly I will tackle the inflation and CPI problem. Now I could start counting inflation since the creation of the Federal Reserve Bank but that is too far back and also does not have as much to do with the major inflation increases in the contemporary counting of inflation circa 1970. So, by now, if you have read my writing, you will know that I emphasize the removal of the gold standard and the subsequent opening of China done by Nixon in 1971-1974. These two moves have permanently altered the economy of the USA in ways we could have never fully realized. Though there was much speculation, the one thing that was for sure, both the market inflation of currency and cost of living would be drastically changed. The year over year inflation adds up to roughly 207% since those days. This is merely government currency inflation. The other inflation you must account for is price inflation. In 1974 $2.00 was the minimum wage, if you account for price increase, that $2.00 is now $12.94, which is an inflation of roughly 547%. So even if you only accounted for the 207% that $2.00 is now $6.14. This proves two things. The argument of minimum wage forcing inflation is nonsense and that the way to fix it is to do the opposite, wage deflation, which is also nonsense. Precisely because both the market cap and volume has grown exponentially since 1974, yet the currency inflation does not match the price inflation. Now what also must be said is that the CPI is a phenomenally bad way of measuring economic inflation due to so many flaws in how the goods and services are accounted for. To keep it simple, there is 80,000 goods and services measured by the CPI to calculate inflation. It averages those goods and services in specific categories. It does not account for the overall exclusion of a good or service if it becomes unaffordable; when talking about exclusion there is also a failure to recognize substitution as a quality of life drop. The CPI also weights these goods and services based on necessity but inherently weights them against another which does not account for basic needs being the most important over everything. If you have no car or transportation, the weight of ice cream or pizza does not really matter when you are missing one of the basic needs. The CPI also does not measure the quality of these products or the so-called “shrinkflation” that is involved. Also, it does not account for regional or household needs that vary based on income or size of household. This was the biggest part of our argument for a minimum wage increase federally.

So, naturally we must tackle the next part. There are many vested interests that have stake in keeping wages low. Instead of just saying CEOs bad, we will make it much more broad here. It is in the interest of big corporations to keep minimum wages low because it allows for them to have a workforce that will sell more of their own time to them and have more obedience to them. This notion that most liberals have that they want to suppress wages to make more money is just ignorant. It also enforces a mindset of being a sort of wage-slave instead of someone who works for their own enrichment. This simply stems from a production point of view; many companies want to be able to push out as much product as possible at a lower price to sell more. They never cared about quality even if they tell you they do. Our international business regulations allow for them to make their products in other countries and at a lower wage for them as well. They then get to import their products here to their American side of production which only accounts for finishing touches and assembly and then sells them on the market. But you might wonder about fast food places specifically since they are a huge portion of the economy. How is it that they get to produce so much and have such huge work forces; Or places like Walmart and its cohorts. That is because they make their money on their locations and land value, not really on production. Their bigger locations make up for the smaller ones and do not require the same amount of workers either. So really the smaller locations are often in surplus even though you might believe that they are dragging the company down. Also, there is a portion of this that pushes the idea that wage laws are tied to product pricing. It is, but only to a certain extent. Labor does not account for even 50% of the costs when talking about a large production operation like McDonalds or Acme.

The job market in general has completely transformed due to outside ways of making wages that have become the norm in the internet age. It also coincides with the death of the Boomer economy; This belief that everyone must be a company worker to sustain their life. If an increase was to be instantiated the job market would actually grow because of entry level workers not needing to work overtime; either for more pay or because the service industry needed them. A hiring explosion would occur and more production would occur as well. To refute those who would say otherwise, I can simply state that there is a lull in young people wanting to work because of wages and work-life balance. The modernization of a working life has been extremely detrimental to everyone. At no other point in history has there been a time when people simply were wage slaves who sold their time instead of their skills. The economy has forced everyone into being someone who views life as the rat race itself instead of actually separating work from life entirely. People now base their entire identity on their work life. Because of the internet age, the newer generations have started to see that it is their chance to break from this. But because wages are low in general across the country on a federal level, it has created an elevated and false sense of stability in pursuing a “job” outside of the norm on the internet. Young people all now have this dream of becoming some sort of influencer and not having any real source of income as they parasite off the government or their parents. This is because the avenues they should have on the inside no longer provide at least a baseline of self-sufficiency. They have this belief of all or nothing in situations that do not require it and also with extreme odds of failure. This produces burnout in an inordinate fashion and also masses of unskilled hyper insecure and “work” identifying young people. This is also a complete misdirection of work culture in general, like choosing to be a part of a gig economy. You choose to be a “freelancer” but have an even lower standard of living while saying that you are choosing freedom. It is a problem that compounds instead of fixing itself because the market has never been free since the end of the 1950s.

Now we must talk about the most simple part of this argument, budget luxury. In my own account of the generations, the Millennials are from the years 1982-1998 and their Zoomer successors are from 1999 to 2014, which leaves the newest generation I call “Azov” to be 2015 to 2029. I only mention this to show who the main people are, who buy into this lifestyle. It seems to be mostly the younger half of the Millennials and all of the Zoomers. I believe that Generation Azov will have a reaction to this and be counter to it because they haven’t really started their financial life and will have to fully see all the results when they finally turn about 16. Now this doesn’t mean that other generations are excluded entirely, because some of those inside other generations are highly influenceable through business or social means because of their need to be relevant in either metric. Whether it be through the latest cellular device or the most designer of clothes with a price tag on it, or going to the most reviewed restaurants at a high price level with “atmosphere”. It is all relatively a scam in a specific way. Our service based economy has forced us into amazing levels of wealth because of the way we perceive debt on an international and personal level. This makes even big luxuries “affordable” which is true but not sustainable. Compare life from the 1950s to now, we live with so much more luxury than we realize. But the type of luxury has changed, from a sort of life necessity, like a highly functionable refrigerator, to just a lavish high quality shirt, that was made in a specific way with specific fabrics and by certain people. It has become the pure meaning of luxury, that there is no real added benefit from buying these things other than what we term “higher quality”. This is really only being able to participate in an exclusion market to show that you are above others. This mentality permeates through all sorts of goods and services because of people who are willing to spend a days worth of wages to get it. There are even services that exacerbate this way of living through financing these sort of items to make a quick buck. Klarna and Affirm are the two biggest ones, which typically partner with Amazon or other big retailers that offer to help you finance an item at an absurd interest rate like 30%. So, knowing all of this, how do we really determine the weight of one of these goods in the CPI? Are we sure that it is actually needed? What is the metric for determining if something is luxury or not? Even if you can still live in this budget luxury lifestyle, is that really calculated correctly in the CPI? Are you really living a financially secure lifestyle?

Lastly, we will talk about the effects of a lower than needed minimum wage and the state law increases. Before that, I will give my take on what I believe the wage should be and why I believe it. It is a range from no less than $11.00 to no more than $13.00. Though, if you want a more specific figure from me, I believe, $12.34. This produces a range of about $18,000 per year for part time workers and about $24,000 for full time workers. According to my own calculations this is what it would take to fund the absolute basic needs of staying alive and being healthy. Because this level functions as an absolute bottom, it should produce a better competitive wage at levels above entry. I must address there being a level of too much, because the Bernie Sanders idea is to make it close to $20 an hour. This is radical legislation that comes from a purely class based derision of economics. It vilifies the rich instead of having a deeper understanding of all the economic factors around minimum wage and how state economies function. Many states cannot handle this sort of increase and would also sort of collapse their economy. There are a majority of states that have a labor law that pushes the minimum wage above the federal minimum. However, a solid 42% still sits at the $7.25 federal minimum; With 34% of the USA that has a state minimum wage equivalent too or above $14.00. This leaves the last 24% somewhere in-between the federal minimum and what I would say the barrier is of being to high on a federal level, $14.00. I judge this to be too much because specifically it drives companies out of these states to lower waged states to make their products and/or sell their services. Companies will often base their HQ in states with not only lower tax laws but lower state wage laws. This creates an unbalanced job market across the country which also influences movement of citizens state to state. I also believe there should be a sort of basis on when the minimum wage law gets adjusted if the market grows. I am not sure there is any perfect way in which to calculate this because the CPI is so highly flawed and any number of market fluctuations could happen. So, even with a hardline increase every 5 years it would be hard to settle on, maybe $1.20 each 5 years?

So, with all that laid out, it becomes clear this isn’t just about adjusting a number or checking a box. It’s about realigning with the reality of how people live and work today. It’s about acknowledging how the entire structure around wages, cost of living, and modern labor has shifted and how the federal minimum wage has failed to move with it. It’s about a reality where younger generations are stuck balancing fake luxury with real poverty, while the system measuring their needs still thinks it’s 1995. The economy has evolved, the labor market has shifted, and the tools we use to measure both have fallen behind. A wage floor that hasn’t moved in over a decade doesn’t just fail workers, it misrepresents the entire foundation of what modern survival looks like. The conversation around minimum wage shouldn’t be frozen in time. It should reflect the actual conditions people face now. The question is, how much longer can we afford to pretend that it doesn’t?