In the 50's a carpenter could have a house, a wife that didn't work and put his kids through college before he retired. Wages started to stagnate as cola went up. By the 70's double income households became the norm as more women entered the workforce to maintain their lifestyle. The 80's brought on credit debt to keep things going. The wage divide has increased in non-union companies between the top earners and the bottom dwellers. The minimum wage increases are at least a decade apart but cola keeps chugging along so each year you technically make less money if you're paid a minimum wage.
My mother worked for minimum wages her whole life, raised two kids without a father and died without a funeral. Life was a struggle and homelessness was a yearly experience. Going days without eating, no heat in the winter or a/c in the summer.

I think the minimum wage should be a living wage. Take the average 1 bedroom apartment, the cost to live in it and the bare minimum it takes to survive in that state, divide that into an hourly pay and set that as the minimum wage for that state.

The last job I had the CEO made 8 million a year and got a 12 million dollar bonus. The workers paid more for their Healthcare. Seems fair.