the Democrat's basic boggle

I'm good with low(er) prices and manufacturing abroad. There is no price at which an American can make a t-shirt that I would be willing to pay

You think those are the type of manufacturers that will move their sweatshops to the US?

I think that is what all these people talking about re-shoring manufacturing are imagining

Wondering if you understand that by supporting third world sweat shops, you are causing American workers to remain under employed and under paid?

If the only place I could buy clothes from was a US manufacturer who paid everyone $25/hour + full benefits, I would be naked, because they would be so expensive I wouldn't be able to buy them. No one who worked there would be able to buy clothes either

In that case the cost would drop as people would find ways to innovate and make clothing cheaper. It is said “Necessity is the mother of Invention” but it is also the mother of Innovation.

Innovations like automating away all the jobs and laying off all the senior employees? You can't innovate your way out of the fact that paying a lot of people a lot of money is expensive.

A couple of points to consider in that: innovations bring the wages of consumers up also, enabling them to afford necessities, and turning many luxuries of yesterday into necessities today.

Second, who makes the automation machines?

Much fewer people make automation machines than would otherwise do the work that the machines do. The whole point of automation is to cut labor costs by employing fewer people

Unfortunately the rise in automation is largely due to minimum wage increases.

So minimum wage is too high to be affordable, but a real living wage isn't? (I'm not arguing for minimum wage hikes or "living wage", quite th opposite)

Workers compete for the best paying jobs while companies compete to get the best workers — often those with the most experience. Wages are determined by how much an employer values the worker’s performance and skill, which means people just entering the workforce who might be employable under a lower wage and work their way up are left unemployed because a mandate of their wages being X-amount does not mean their work is equal to it. This also traps more skilled workers in lower paying jobs as well. Some jobs like the bagger at a grocery store or the fry cook at McDonalds are not meant to be careers, but just a way to get work experience. A “living” wage is often a euphemism for a “higher minimum wage.”