Adding a few hundred thousand jobs at $15 an hour isn't going to help most people afford a blanket that goes from $20 to $50, shoes that go from $50 to $80, or a smartphone that costs $2500 instead of $500. Even if you pay people federal minimum of $7.25 it's massively more than paying someone $.60 an hour, plus bennies, union shit, US state and federal safety regulations, mandated training, hr personnel. Do you think Wang Ling is going to have a diversity rep that makes $50k a year he can complain to when Shing Chu grabs his ass? Shelly in Idaho sure does. And she can't work more than x hours without a break, or x hours a day, and anything over 40 is time and a half.
There's a reason why manufacturing jobs have been leaving the US for the past 40 years. And don't mistake this for arguing for that: I'd love to see manufacturing jobs back here, less reliance on global imports, less of a drive to move Americans off actual work and on to UBI. But if that comes, it won't come without a massive negative effect on quality of life in the US in the near term at least.
There's not much we can do about it, except buy what you can now, save money now, think about living with less. Learn to make shit last longer. Repair instead of replace. If you can't afford a new phone every 2 years, take good care of your current one. Be frugal with food instead of buying too much so it expires and you throw out half of it. Look into cleaning and repairing your shoes instead of buying new ones. Buy better quality, less fashionable (ie timeless) basic clothes. Think of how you might live if you or your family members were unemployed for a few years, or took a 40% pay cut. Live like that now.
You don't have to start hoarding gold and guns and MREs, but you can make it so if we at least get as bad as 2008 or the late 70s malaise you won't suffer as much.
