“If you define the value of a dollar as 1/12 hour of a minimum wage worker’s time, why wouldn’t other good adjust their dollar-denominated prices accordingly?’
They probably would, but it would take time, and you end up with the same situation, only the numbers are different. Of course, the minimum wage doest not define the value of the dollar.
It would make more sense to *lower* the minimum wage to $5 per hour. Then the illegal immigrants would have to compete at lower than $5 per hour. Raising the minimum wage to $12 per hour, an illegal immigrant could charge $10 per hour, and still be competitive.
That was my point, and what minimum wage tinkerers don't get. You've got 150 million people or whatever doing things that create wealth, and the right to consume that wealth gets distributed by various means among them as well as some that don't create any. You could make the minimum wage $1,000,000 an hour, and there's still the same people dividing up the same pile of goods and services. To raise the standard of living, you must create more actual wealth (good and services, ignoring the numerical price attached), either by getting more people creating it, or making those already doing so more efficient at it.
Of course, the minimum wage doest not define the value of the dollar.
It's certainly one valid definition if you legislate the minimum wage to be $12/hr. The proof that it's a relevant definition can be found when it works it way into prices. Just looking at the same point I was making, but from the other end.