The effect of raising wages is that a chocolate bar still costs the same amount relative to the minimum wage as it used to. Minimum wage workers are not somehow more empowered to buy reams more things than they were back when it was half the current rate, or nobody would be complaining about wanting to raise it again.

$15 now, $20 in 2025, it won't end. Inflation has some bearing on this, but largely the effect of raising the minimum wage is simply to hurt the lower middle class who have managed to climb one or two rungs up from the bottom.

Raising minimum wages and inflation are very, very different. It affects the lower end of the income spectrum in a very disproportionate way, and does not cause an equivalent raise in prices, there is an entire universe of other economic factors at play.

I mostly wanted to point out the incongruity in your putting down of the article/author, when your argument is based on superficial assumptions.

> Raising minimum wages and inflation are very, very different.

Not so different, in terms of how they impact purchasing power. If anything, though, inflation is more egalitarian because it impacts everyone and everything.

Only a couple percent of hourly workers make minimum wage or below. That's why people keep saying raising it doesn't create inflation that cancels the raise out. Most of the inputs to a typical basket of goods are not minimum wage labor.

See: https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2017/home.htm