It's really hard to understand, but... their lifestyles won't change if we
do make their salaries more equitable.
Just giving people more
money doesn't work, you have to give them more
wealth, more purchasing power.
A famous economics study looked at a small system in a prison, where cigarettes were used as money. Let's say the price of a new pair of shoes was 200 cigarettes.
Overnight, a new supply of cigarettes came into the prison. Suddenly twice as many cigarettes were available. Was the result that every prisoner could now afford two pairs of shoes? No! The result was that the price of shoes doubled to 400 cigarettes.
The increase in money supply does not produce, magically, more goods and services to become available. It just changes the price of what is being bought.
One place to see how this principle works is in the price of college. For the last few decades, more and more money has gone to gummint grants and cheap loans -- to help the people who are worse off, so they can afford to go to college. But what has happened, at the same time, is that college tuition has risen at more than twice the rate of inflation... making it less and less available.
Excellent post on this phenomenon
If more money is made available for a thing, the price of that thing increases. You can't fight this; it is a very powerful force doing what it does best.
Now you can argue, well, the
inequity is a larger social problem than the lack of purchasing power of the poor. But what you're really doing is arguing for a less efficient economic system. Which will not really help the poor,
in the long run.