Fight for Fifteen Isn't a Good Idea. There I said it.

The "fight for fifteen" won't work. It doesn't fix the problem, because a living wage isn't a uniform or perpetual number.

I'm not saying that I am against raising the minimum wage. Nor am I here to present bad faith arguments or bootstrap sermonizing.

I just think it's important to remember that the minimum wage hasn't increased in over 12 years. Even if a minimum wage increase passes, of any amount, how long do you think it will be until the next one? How many corporate plots to undermine it? How much of the cost will the Bezoes of the world pass to the consumer?

Even if we get the $15, the cost of living will increase and reduce the worth of that $15. And, we'll be back where we started.

The solution needs to be a permanent one and it needs to adjust automatically. The majority of our representatives are empathy-less, completely out-of-touch, oligarchs. And, I don't see that changing in my lifetime.

So, my idea...

The minimum wage for each area becomes more local. It should be the average middle-class person's cost of living in each county.

And I mean the cost of everything. Everything should be calculated and averaged out over a year.

We need to include the yearly cost of gas to and from work on the average commute for people in the area. The cost of child care for two children for a single parent, for everyone, whether they have children or not must be calculated. (If the Supreme Court strikes down Roe vs Wade, we're going to need people to have money to adopt.) The average cost of housing, tampons, groceries, insurance, and hospital visits, even the gym should be included in the minimum wage.

Now, you're thinking everyone will move to higher earning areas. That already happens. Except now, they usually can't afford to live in those areas. So, many people go into debt, or worse become homeless.

So what if people move to lower-cost areas? That already happens, now, too. It's called suburbia and gentrification. So the movements of people will not change drastically. The added bonus is it will be harder to gentrify areas.

Making the averages county-based will also make the averages more accurate.

Right now, the averages for each state do not accurately reflect the disparity between the lowest and the highest earners or areas. The Congressional Budget Office reported the highest ever rate of income inequality in 2018. And according to Pew Research, the US has the highest disparity out of the G7 nations. Even in 2017, the Journal of Academic Social Sciences showed the US's closes peer nation to be Turkey. The top ten in the same year were all Northern or Central European. Defying Ted Cruz's assertion that the US is the freest or richest.

Why does this matter?

Income inequality of this extreme means that the middle class is disappearing. It also suggests that economic and social classes are stratifying. Stratifying classes nullifies meritocracy and makes bootstrapping a mere myth. The US seems bound to become a Charles Dickens setting.

And we can't count on congressional members to do anything about it without pressure. The oligarchy secures its position in overwhelmingly lopsided power structures like this. When the middle class holds the purse strings, the government must listen. Strong middle classes push for social justice and better governance. They have the education and financial stability to do so.

We must, like the bees, save, foster, grow, and protect the middle class. It is our power. It maintains the creed of "for the people, by the people." Without a middle class, the US loses even the semblance of a free nation.

We must improve the economic disparity in the US.

I, also, propose the minimum wage updates every time Congress, either house, gives themselves a raise. That is just equitable.

I'm not an economist admittedly.

I am a forward-thinking citizen that wants long-term solutions.