My hot take: Greedy rich companies and millionaires and billionaires will always try to take as much as possible from the consumer. Raising the minimum wage effects people that were making the minimum wage, and is less and less beneficial to those that were making more than minimum wage. If minimum wage jumped up by $5 to go from $7.25 to $12.25, anyone who was already making $12.25 isn't likely to get a raise to $17.25. But because all these people are making more, the wealthy will up pricing of food and housing and utilities in order to keep making even more. This means inflation also rises faster. So while it helps things in the short term, it does nothing to help people in the long term, and it also hurts people closer to or already retired because the inflation will make their fixed incomes worth less. So raising the minimum wage alone is a shit idea that only puts a short term bandage on things and the rising inflation means you'll constantly be "behind the eight-ball" and playing catch-up to keep trying to raise it as inflation keeps rising because the rich keep getting richer. The real fix needs to be lowering the top. Not raising the bottom. Tax the shit out of the wealthy with higher taxes as money made grows. Close the tax loopholes that let them hoard wealth. Make it so that so much of their money beyond like $5,000,000 in cash or assets increasing in value a year would be pointless to try and make because it would all just go to taxes. This will cut the legs out from under the wealthy and stop the needless ripping off of everyone else. If they can't hoard money and increase their monetary value infinitely then the money will start going to the places it should. The inflation would stop, and upping the minimum wage could actually keep things livable.