It sounds good and I'd be all for it if our country was filled with ethically and morally sound individuals. But we live in a society where it's common for people to pop out as many kids as they can, kick out the dad, for that sweet government paper. The more you give the more the shitty ones will take and in a population of 300 million+, maybe I'm just a pessimist, I'd say the majority of low wage workers would jump at the opportunity to do less and get more.
Maybe controversial but, I'd rather them continue to lower their own quality of life and those they are responsible for, than lower mine and everyone elses in the form of being a drain on the system that they could otherwise not be if they had self motivation.
I'll also provide this point which I had a discussion with someone, if you increase the minimum wage to your definition of "liveable" (not sure what you would set that as feel free to let me know as I'd say defining what liveable is in this case is something we should have done on page one), what happens if low skill workers are replaced by kiosks/computers. I'm not talking people who are already established in a career and their company swaps them out for a computer, they'll be fine, they've built a resume up. I'm talking about the cashier at mcdonalds who's worked 40 hours a week for the last 6 years while not learning any skills to improve their life, and they suddenly get replaced by a computer? We know it's just a matter of time anyway but increasing the minimum wage would seriously speed up this transition. We all know companies will increase their profits wherever feasible, why then would they not replace their cashiers at every location with the hot new system, retain maybe 5% just to have 1-2 people at each location in case something goes wrong? What happens to all those people who have spent the last few years doing nothing with their lives and making crap money at mcdonalds? They make slightly better money for 1-2 years and then can't get a job? They go get another low skilled minimum wage job?
I would be curious to see what you define as a "liveable" wage, and what living conditions should be the "standard" that a "liveable" wage could fund.