Except that the prices of everything rise every year.

Everything?

True, some prices have risen. But, if I may, here are some fun equations to ponder.

1996 (Florida)

Minimum wage $4.25 Gallon of milk $2.73 Gallon of gas $1.26 Dozen eggs $1.31

2017 Minimum wage $8.10 Gallon of milk $3.31 Gallon of gas $2.41(was almost $4.00, if I remember correctly a few years ago?) Dozen eggs $1.59

1996

Electronics (to do work, using one's natural talents, for example) Expensive.

2017 Electronics: Much cheaper. Adjusting for inflation: much, much cheaper.

Of course, with electronics, there are too many intricacies to list, but here's a specific one. I bought a 512MB compact flash card in 2001, which set me back $249. I think the last one I bought was 2 years ago, or so. It was $60 for 16 GB. I make my living taking pictures. What would 16 GB worth of pictures have cost me in 2001?

I'm happy with these numbers. Simply put, let's think very carefully before using absolutes.

Since you've cherry picked your data to support an observation of no inflation, do you also support not increasing the minimum wage?

There is acknowledgement of inflation in every one of my examples, save certain electronics. I have no idea how to answer this question as I didn't deny prices increased.

Blaming wage stickiness relative to prices is different than blaming inflation. And, outside unions and jobs with competitive labor markets, the best advocate for wage un-stickiness many workers have is government involvement via the minimum wage.

96% of hourly workers already earn more than minimum wage, so it shouldn't be the first place to look at improving wage stickiness. Start with the cost of employment, primarily health care, which has sucked up a lot of money that should have gone to wage increases.

https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2015/home.htm

Minimum wage sets a floor which affects wages close to it, too.

Let me try a different tack. Wages used to go up without relying on minimum wage. Wages have flattened, so there are a bunch of other issues that should be looked at before just forcing wages up, which can have all sorts of unintended consequences, especially if the real reasons wages are flat aren't addressed first.

You're right. Raising or lowering minimum wage purchasing power is worthy of caution, but having minimum wage track inflation is an economic no-op, not a shift in policy.

it's not an economic no-op, because then the fight begins over who gets to measure inflation. Moreover, if the tracking isn't continuous (which it can't possibly be), during the 'between periods' there's wage devaluation which disproportionately affect the poor.

The WHOLE POINT of inflation is that it screws over wageearners:

https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/13/the-case-for-hi...

"even in the long run, it’s really, really hard to cut nominal wages. Yet when you have very low inflation, getting relative wages right would require that a significant number of workers take wage cuts. So having a somewhat higher inflation rate would lead to lower unemployment, not just temporarily, but on a sustained basis."

So the choices are wait for the economy to suddenly unfuck itself or give our lowest earners am immediate boost?

Turns out there are more than two choices, so no.

http://wiki.c2.com/?FalseDichotomy

It's more likely to give you money unless you're a lender and not a debtor.