Cool it with the tone. If you actually re-read what I have said a couple times: I think there should be a $10 national minimum wage, and from there, cities and states can adjust their cost of living (i.e. LA, Seattle, Chicago, NYC, SF should be $15, duluth, etc should be $10 and MSP/Milwaukee should be somewhere int he middle) $10 an hour at least makes someone $400 a week (still, barely anything) but at least a couple paychecks should be able to afford someone rent/basic food in several parts of the country. Then ideally those same people can save even a tiny bit for mid to long term savings as well. That extra $100-$120 a week for people will make a big difference for them IMO (meanwhile it shouldn't effect the businesses much at all) By the way, nobody is saying definitely WHAT the number should exactly be, just that it should be a bit higher. Yes, a couple jobs and hours might be sacrificed in the near term, but eventually the market will correct itself (bad businesses will go out of business) and better businesses will figure out how to run a better business.