> Now let me know if this is crazy, but more money chasing the same goods
> and locations means, it seems, higher prices? (especially higher rents).
This is the most common neoliberal argument against higher minimum wage laws.
Its most obvious flaw is that the minimum wage, like the Earned Income Tax Credit, gives more money primarily to one class, and not the class which, in a plutonomy like our own, drives the consumer and housing markets.
Perhaps Doug and others will argue that this is fallacious, and that ANY public benefit is an indirect subsidy to employers, but until they mount serous arguments that we should discount ALL public benefits which might save a boss somewhere the odd buck, in favor of concessions extracted from those same employers, I'll be hard-pressed to take them seriously.