Money, especially fiat, has no intrinsic value. It's simply a measure.
Goods have intrinsic value that can go up and down. If IBM never took off, that stock would go down in value regardless of the economy as a whole. Further, there are objective factors that affect the value of goods.
When your measure of value changes, however, that affects everything. Further, the value of a unit of measurement is entirely synthetic; there is literally an external government organ who's entire purpose is to manipulate it.
So, even if minimum wage should be $50 today, that doesn't actually matter because the number is totally made up. The important part is what you can buy in exchange for what you actually produce, be it a good or labour. That has cratered, which is especially egregious because personal productivity is much higher today due to technogical innovations.
Tl;dr: the ruler is not the same as the thing you're measuring.
It really doesn't.
Money, especially fiat, has no intrinsic value. It's simply a measure.
Goods have intrinsic value that can go up and down. If IBM never took off, that stock would go down in value regardless of the economy as a whole. Further, there are objective factors that affect the value of goods.
When your measure of value changes, however, that affects everything. Further, the value of a unit of measurement is entirely synthetic; there is literally an external government organ who's entire purpose is to manipulate it.
So, even if minimum wage should be $50 today, that doesn't actually matter because the number is totally made up. The important part is what you can buy in exchange for what you actually produce, be it a good or labour. That has cratered, which is especially egregious because personal productivity is much higher today due to technogical innovations.
Tl;dr: the ruler is not the same as the thing you're measuring.