Whenever I see these arguments for a higher minimum wage, I see the point missed. The minimum wage could be $4 an hour, but if I can rent an apartment for $300 a month, and feed my family for $75 a month it wouldn't make a difference. In my younger days, I could find an apartment in La for about $600. This was a studio, but it was ultimately public transportation friendly, and I didn't need a car. So on $10 an hour I could make it work.

Now the same apartments about 1300, and this has only happen in the last decade.

Seriously, make housing easier to build. Don't allow anyone who might be a bit annoyed by construction to file half a dozen complaints and hold up projects by years.

As an extreme measure, it wouldn't be a bad idea to have social programs which help people with relocation expenses. Let's say you had a struggling family in Los Angeles, a good social program would give this family $5,000 to relocate to Nashville, and to rent an apartment in a city where a working class family can survive. But this underscores a very nasty truth, there are cities which are hostile towards working class people. I'm not sure of the society we're ready to embrace this truth