I saw a great example of that in Australia. The exchange rate was close to 1:1 last June when I was in Sydney. EVERYTHING cost more. Young people could not afford houses (even the shacks there went for over $300,000). The BIG news was that they’re claiming that people there can’t live on the minimum wage and that it should be raised FROM, as I recall, about $18 / hour. RAISING THE MINIMUM WAGE DOES NOT LIFT PEOPLE OUT OF POVERTY. It just moves the line as to what constitutes poverty.
As a Property Rights Expansionist, I believe the solution is obvious.
The number and proportion of adults earning minimum wage has been increasing now for some time and has reached the critical mass now manifesting in protests and calls for a $15 minimum wage.
This critical mass of adults living on minimum wage has one primary problem. The elephant in their budgets is the cost of rent: Half of all low-income Americans spend at least half their income on shelter, according to Mortgage News Daily.
The obvious solution is to expand property rights and thereby allow the Invisible Hand of the marketplace and private sector to resolve the problem by increasing the supply of housing affordable to minimum wage earners.
A corollary to this is that government will never end homelessness; only the private sector can do so.