wages

One of the oft-repeated memes of the right-wing anti-tax, pro-business 'economists' (and their politician followers) is that raising the minimum wage would 'hurt business'. Beyond the anti-minimum wage movement you also have this item reported in the NYTimes:

To make matters worse, the paycheck itself is shrinking. For non-managers in both white- and blue-collar jobs, hourly wage gains have failed to beat inflation in every month for the past year. When that happens, the only way to get ahead is to work more. Earlier this month the government reported that the average workweek lengthened in April, raising hopes that weekly earnings would at last begin to outpace price increases. But inflation has eaten up all of the income from the additional work - and more: over the past year, average weekly earnings have fallen by 0.3 percent after inflation.

I guess I just can't understand how these 'economists' think that we are building a stable, prosperous society when these kinds of trends are afoot.

How can these people and the minimum wage folks afford to do anything? The answer is that increasingly, they can't.

They're too busy working two or three jobs just to keep food on the table and roof over their heads, and not afford healthcare or anything else.

That's not a description of a society that's moving forward and creating a larger, more affluent middle class.