Minimum wage was touted as a way to push out blacks, immigrants, and other undesirables with asymmetric access to education and capital when it was introduced in the US in the wake of the great depression. They wanted a floor high enough that only a nice white boy would earn and thus outlaw the lesser paid workers to the fringes where they can be further exploited.

Minimum wage still has this function today, a policy for smug elite to smash down the least fortunate while doing double speak to pretend like they are doing the poor a favor.

Maybe that’s what they want? Yes, a $50 min wage isn’t viable for many jobs, but those jobs could be automated anyways, especially with the wage pressure of employing real people making the capital investments work out. It would have to be coupled with some UBI, though, since a lot of people aren’t going to be able to provide labor that passes that threshold.