I'm working off the assumption that the minimum wage should be enough to live above the poverty line.
If $12 is good, then why not get them far above the poverty line by making it $20 per hour?
What are your reasons for NOT doing so? I am truly interested.
This isn't France, jude. I can't remember the last time I worked a 32 hour work week. For most of my adult life I've worked closer to a 64 hour work week. So if I worked 2 jobs at 32 hours each, then I'd be making your above poverty level wage, wouldn't I?
The fact is that if someone is living in poverty because he is working 32 hours per week at a minimum wage job, then he needs to work TWO minimum wage jobs. He'd still be working less hours than I have worked for most of my life. What gives a guy who is letting his children go without dinner the right to work 32 hours a week and then complain that he doesn't have enough money? After he's worked 32 hours, he still has 134 hours of leisure time. Even if he's working 64 hours per week, he still has 104 hours of idle time. If he sleeps 6 hours a day, like I do, then he would still have 62 hours of leisure time. He could work three 32 hour a week jobs if he were that desperate.
Tell me jude, do you think you are going to find a job in the legal profession where you can get away with working 32 hours per week? Dream on.
Now, why would you work off that assumption? 16-year-olds don't need to earn a living.
Face it, the problem isn't what wages people are paid. This is the United States of America where LESS than 3% of the workforce makes minimum wage (John Stossel, Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity, p 63) and the "poor" in this country have color televisions and cars as a matter of course.
In this country, you have to go out of your way to be poor.