The minimum was wage enacted such that a single breadwinner earning minimum wage would be able to support a family. A family needs 2 bedrooms and a livable apartment, not the bottom of the barrel, squeezed in to one bedroom.
It is simply not viable or desirable to require the lowest skill jobs to pay enough to support a family. It has never been the case that the least skilled laborers in an economy were able to support families without support from other sources (e.g. a multigenerational house).
Min wage is the single-person poverty level, and is much higher now than when it was enacted.