[JackSlateur]

If you have no raise and your neighbor have a raise, then you are poorer

It may be easier to understand globally: if you have no raise but everybody have a raise, then you are poorer (because everything cost more, but you have no raise)

[Manuel_D]

> If you have no raise and your neighbor have a raise, then you are poorer

This is just factually wrong. If my neighbor gets a raise and I don't, and stuff costs the same amount then I have not gotten poorer. If my neighbor doubled his income tomorrow, how would I be any poorer? In theory, you could argue that his higher income results in inflation, but that's only the case if total productivity doesn't match the increase in the money supply.

Wealth is not zero sum: inflation adjusted wealth has increased over time: more houses and cars get built, more advanced industries increase productivity, etc. Wealth is not a fixed pie, the total amount of wealth in the world increases.

[JackSlateur]

When minimal wage increases, everything costs more ..

Wealth has no intrinsic value, it is only relative to other and to what can be exchanged with money

The numbers may always go up but the things that can be exchanged does not. Hence the "you become poorer"