system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: A minimum wage increase would lessen the value of what a middle class worker makes

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I always hear about increasing the minium wage and how it helps the people who make minimum wage which would be great, but I also realize wouldn't that be hurting the middle class? I think this because with a minimum wage increase what would happen is inflation would raise the prices of common items, and while the increase in minimum wage helps the poor afford things, the middle class who make more than minimum wage don't get a pay increase but rather have to pay more for less. I understand minimum wage is used to help the lower class but wouldn't increasing it just make more of a burden on the middle class? Wouldn't it also make the middle class have less money and only increase the wealth gap between the middle and lower class?
gpt
Two things. First, inflation is a largely monetary phenomenon -- a function of the *amount* of money available rather than its distribution -- so redistributing money to minimum wage workers from elsewhere shouldn't affect inflation very much at all. Second, less than 4% of American workers make minimum wage, so any effect on the macroeconomy, whatever effect there is, is going to be pretty tiny. 

Really, what you'd expect to happen (discounting employment effects) would be a small, one-time bump in the prices of goods and services supplied largely by minimum-wage labour. The rate of inflation itself would be unchanged, and even if it were pushed one way or the other the central bank has a mandate to keep it around 2%.