Income insufficiency is a problem. If I get paid enough, I'm not worried about other people making more. I don't care that Bill Gates and Donald Trump make more than some small countries if I can feed, clothe, and shelter myself and maybe put away something for when I can't work anymore. What bothers me, and probably bothers a lot of people, is that there always seems to be enough money to give raises to CEO's who are already rich, but when it comes to the working people who are losing a little bit every year to inflation, there doesn't seem to be any money for raises. We're supposed to save responsibly for retirement and save up in case we get sick or laid off, but how can a person save when rent goes up, health insurance goes up, cars and car repair prices go up, but wages stay the same?
When the cost of labor rises it causes everything else to rise. Price controls are the only way to divorce a rising minimum wage from the rising cost of goods. If there is another way to break the connection between the two I can't think of it. It takes perhaps two election cycles before a federal hike in minimum wage shrinks in purchasing power to the same level it had before the hike. What I don't like is when our politicians use trickery in the form of problem, reaction, solution, to guide us unwittingly toward their own personal goal. Price controls might be a good thing....Jimmy Carter did it for a short time....but don't try to manipulate me in this way. I resent that. If I'm smart enough to vote for you then consider me intelligent enough to help decide my future openly and above board. As far as income inequality is concerned I don't think minimum wage has anything to do with that. Income inequality is currently solved through education and training which makes the worker more valuable to the employer. I think that the wealth being accumulated and distributed among the 1% has nothing to do with income inequality and is being flown as a false flag to artificially raise the federal minimum wage for the purpose of future price controls on rent, utilities, etc.