I like Mr. Gawinowicz’s argument concerning disproportionate CEO salaries, at least in principle. As mentioned in related threads, the major constitutional problem with national minimum wages is the following imo.
With the exception of the federal entities indicated in the Constitution’s Clauses 16 & 17 of Section 8 of Article I as examples, entities under the exclusive legislative control of Congress, the states have never delegated to the feds, expressly via the Constitution, the specific power to decide policy for intrastate wages, intrastate wages uniquely a 10th Amendment-protected state power issue.
The reason that the federal government has been getting away with regulating minimum wage for decades is the following imo. Sadly, as a consequence of parents not making sure that their children are being taught the federal government’s constitutionally limited powers, corrupt federal politicians use the constitutionally indefensible promise of higher and higher federal minimum wage to win votes from low-information voters.
Note that if the states want a national minimum wage then there is nothing stopping them from amending the Constitution to grant the feds the specific power to regulate minimum wage.
The trouble is that the federal govt. already has its tentacles so far embedded into state affairs that it can pretty much do what it wants even if it’s denied the power by the constitution. Consider the DUI laws and speed limits, both of which are most certainly state affairs and none of the feds business. The federal behemoth managed to regulate both of those, however, by setting “voluntary” standards for the states and then cutting off federal highway funding to any state that failed to meet the standards. I suspect that even were the federal minimum wage to be eliminated completely, they would set a similar “voluntary” standard for the states to meet WRT minimum wage and find some stick to beat the states with if they did not comply.