The last way to ease the affordability crunch is to flip the equation, looking at incomes and not just at housing costs. ... But earnings for low- and middle-income families have been essentially stagnant for years. Declining real wages, for example, were a key reason that earlier this year, not a single home on the market in San Francisco was affordable on a teacher’s salary. This problem has led some cities to consider raising their minimum wage, but that, too, can be a long and often nasty political battle.
Can any of the left-of-center economic folk around explain the logic here? I have heard several plausible arguments for an increased minimum wage, but I haven't heard the one making the case that it will lead to increased wages at the income levels typically required to consider buying a home. If "earnings ... have been essentially stagnant for years", why didn't the last minimum wage bump have such an effect?