I agree, the structure of the argument in the Axios piece is misguided: BLS produces U6, and the journalists don't talk about it, so the BLS is doing something wrong (says journalist).
The idea of a national living wage is ridiculous, given the vast disparities in the cost of living.
If you move to San Francisco, you should know that your money isn't going to go as far; conversely if you move to Tulsa you should reasonably be able to take advantage of the low cost of living to build up your savings. If you're residing in Tulsa and still only just surviving, you're not earning a living wage.
Then there's the fact that besides food and rent pretty much everything we buy nowadays is nationally priced - amazon doesn't give you a discount for moving to a low cost of living area; and you don't get to pay lower taxes because cost of living is higher.
But beyond all this, the disparities arise almost exclusively because of a few outliers - maybe 5% of people in the country can live comfortably on less than $20k/yr and less than 10% require substantially more; the vast majority of Americans are close to the average.
It's tougher to say that people in high COL areas need to uproot themselves when they fall on hard times. Depending on the means testing scheme, this can actually come out more expensive for the welfare system. Sure it can spend less on rent, but now that you're 3000 miles away from Grandma it also has to buy childcare. Now that you're in a new place with no friends, maybe you get depressed and need mental health services. Etc, etc.
Rent is absolutely not nationally priced. It can vary 10x.
Because we don't want to set a baseline unemployment statistic which counts people as unemployed when they are earning enough to live in a decent apartment, while the same wage would leave them homeless in a city. By setting higher minimum wages, we effectively raise the cost of living everywhere, as the price for the slow changing supply of housing rises. As the cost of living rises, the comparative advantage of goods produced in the USA is further reduced in comparison to countries with lower costs of living. This results in less manufacturing occurring in the country, and eventually more real unemployment.
What we should be doing is allow for the creation of more low cost of living areas, where what is globally a decent salary is sufficient.
The idea of a national living wage is ridiculous, given the vast disparities in the cost of living.