Because not everyone needs to survive on it. As pointed out above students and the elderly can easily be priced out of the labor market if the minimum wage is pegged to this standard.
Your example is completely invalid today.
"The issue isn't that wages have grown to slow, it is that important costs have grown to quickly."
And employers bear the responsibility for that.
>And employers bear the responsibility for that.
Per the article [0] after adjusting for inflation "That makes the current cost [of college] more than two-and-a-half times as much as it was in 1988 — a markup of 163 percent."
How are employers responsible for a 163% increase in the real cost of college?
[0] https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/29/how-much-college-tuition-has...