This emphasis may seem foolish. A Republican Congress is about as likely to boost minimum wages as it is to declare Hillary's birthday a national holiday. Cracking the elite consensus needs be a first step. Clinton and Reich will have to hammer consistently at their theme for this reversal to occur. This view is logical and confirmed by computer models, but no evidence, only logic, supports it.
Scientific method requires theory, but also that theory be tested by observation and experiment.
Today's economics establishment is pseudo-scientific, with compelling theories but little interest in facts. An exception is a small group led by David Card and Alan Krueger of Princeton. Their radical notion is that economists might learn something from leaving computers for empirical research. Minimum wage changes, unlike many economic events, lend themselves to such study because some states increase minimum wage levels before others. And when the federal minimum jumps, unemployment of minimum wage workers should grow relative to joblessness of workers unaffected by the minimum.