No it's not. Like many ideas the left adopts, it sounds great on the surface but is actually irrational and/or a simply poor idea. Here are some reasons why:
a) it presupposes that unskilled workers (e.g. a 16-year-old who gets a summer job) should get paid $17/hour, which comes out to about $34,000 over the course of a year, which is insane;
b) it ignores the reality that companies which can pay $17/hour are likely *large* businesses which can afford this, but that small companies, especially after being forced to shut down by the government, are likely to be in no situation to offer that kind of wage;
c) it ignores the fact that *the government* has effectively been paying people to stay at home; this means that a company offering $7.25 is competing against the government's offer to pay people what may be a similar "wage" but without having to do the work;
d) only 1% of workers over the age of 25 make minimum wage, which means the meme above would really only apply to teenagers, the majority of which would work in service jobs like restaurants;
e) companies that pay unskilled laborers $17/hour for jobs like fast food restaurant positions will inevitably go on to raise their menu prices, which means that customers' costs will rise (likely many of whom are low income to begin with).
f) wages of $17/hour for unskilled labor inevitably means that some of these businesses will go out of business because they can't cover costs associated with paying unskilled workers $17/hour.
So you see, for a whole host of reasons, it's a ridiculous meme. It may look clever at first, but it's really not.
