Minimum-wage hikes are only half of what caused Venezuela’s problems. The other half are the price controls.
A supplier can (somewhat) absorb a minimum wage hike if he can raise prices. You’ll get inflation, but you’ll still have products on shelves. Venezuela’s problem is that prices are fixed way below what it costs producers to produce those items.
To go full-Venezuelan, Bernie needs to also call for price controls. I’m sure that’s in his playbook down the line.
Bloomberg just announced today that Venezuela will issue cryptodollars whereby each "Petro" (cryptocurrency) will represent one barrel of Venezuela oil.
Combine that with the minimum wage hike projected, it will be only natural to encourage more inflation since cryptocurrency inflates as demand grows.
For a Socialist country, it seems that Maduro envisions the "Petro" and electronic currency as a means of inventing new wealth.
We start by using unemployment and welfare to gauge how many immigrants we really need.