Few would dispute that America's federal minimum wage is inadequate to cover necessities in much of the country, grossly so in households with multiple dependents.
In Britain, reckons the Living Wage Foundation, the minimum is estimated to be about 20% too low, or 30% short in London.
Economists are divided over whether minimum wages have benign effects on employments. Yet, there is broad (though occasionally grudging) agreement that moderate increases lift the working poor out of poverty and can reduce dependence on the government's wealth.
poverty threshold figure