I understand what you're saying, but the truth is that without a minimum wage plus some really effective limits on population growth you just have a recipe for people earning below living wages. Then society tries to make it up to them by giving them government services: food stamps, public healthcare, subsidized housing, etc. Food, healthcare and shelter are things people should be able to provide for themselves through their own wages and private insurance.

People have to survive somehow. They will vote themselves the services they need through government programs if they can't get it through their earnings. It's more efficient to have them take it home in their paycheck than to give it to the government, which takes a cut before giving it back to them as a handout. So, I support a minimum wage and strong unions, plus good family planning to keep wages up. And, of course, suitable immigration and trade policy to stop wages from going down.

Minimum wage by itself is not going to do anything. Unless you fix the population problem it's unsupportable. The standard of living is tied to two things: use of technology and population size. To get a higher standard of living you have to increase the availability of technology or decrease population or both.