Why is minimum wage so insufficient today compared to the past?

I believe we all agree the cost of living has way out paced our pay checks but minimum wage has never been a livable wage. It's an entry level wage for people just coming into the work force.Unfortunitly the good blue collar jobs are being done by machines and computers now. All that's left for blue collar is pretty much minimum wage at this point.Technology and professional hi tech jobs is where the money's at today.

everyone wants more, they see what other people have and don't want to be without even tho they don't have the money to afford it

people have become an 'entitled' society, everyone thinks they are entitled to something just because they are living, over and over I see it here when repeatedly people will ask how much they get for their child, so far the gov't is not paying you to have kids, some people think just because the actually are working they are due a refund, and Congress has not be unresponsible for this change of attitude, I can name a few things that Congress has done to support this

when I went to Cal as a citizen of Calif. I paid fees for the classes I took spent good money on books and $20, today I would not be able to attend without help

when I started working in the 60's I can remember by wage was $1.30 and I maybe paid 25 cents for a loaf of bread, compare that with today's wages and prices

the more people demand for entry level jobs, the higher prices will go, as they have for decades, will it ever stop?

You are a sadly uninformed person. I am no economist but a quick internet search would tell you two things 1. wages have been stagnant in the USA for most people since the 1970s and 2. there has been almost NO inflation in the USA in the past several years.

You are trying to reduce a complex problem to something simplistic which is typical of Americans especially those without post graduate degrees. If the "economy" was so simple people wouldn't need PhDs to qualify as "experts".

Well, cost of living really hasn't outpaced wages. It has only outpaced the minimum wage which is an arbitrary minimum. The minimum wage is a MINIMUM that a business CAN pay, not a wage that a business MUST pay. But to hear the leftists on this board, we're all making minimum wage and that it is static, you can never make more.

Why is minimum wage so insufficient today compared to the past?

HUMAN GREED , pure, simple and NO OTHER REASON... MONEY TALKS and RULES ! It's terrible how some people ( including children, soldiers , our elderly ) suffer , go hungry, homeless ... even die cuz of the GREED of others !

Minimum wage is not supposes to represent a "living" wage. It's to prevent exploitative wages.

If you can't make more than minimum wage you shouldn't be raisning a family.

BLue Collar jobs paid much more than minimum wage. Those jobs are gone for the most part now. Fast food jobs are NOT blue collar jobs.

Because the people working those jobs are making pennies, and prices at stores and utility companies are high.

Also, penny used to be worth something. You used to be able to get a loaf of bread or a stick of butter for five cents. Now, a penny is trash.

The effective tax rate, or if you prefer the "cost" of government confiscation of wealth. Look at how much "government" costs now in comparison to say fifty years ago. And you will see precisely why the standard of living is getting harder and harder to maintain...

When government gets bigger or confiscates more wealth, we all get poorer...despite all of the smoke and mirrors that they use in an attempt to hide this very basic truth...

In the past 40+ years, there has been a MASSIVE shift in tax liabilities from corporate profit and unearned income onto wages (what most of us earn). That's why wages are taxed at higher rates...