They do it because they can; nothing says "rural empowerment" quite like sticking it well and good to their urban neighbors. Also, I suspect that, deep down, people living in rural communities know they can't keep their young 'uns down on the farm forever, but if they make it more difficult for them to relocate to urban centers by suppressing wages, they'll basically encourage their children to keep living in their one-stop light, dead-end 'burgs for just a little bit longer.

Our "democracy" is such a joke. Idiot legislators ram through insane BS along with other totally non-related legislation and we call this governing.

Why are rural communities so concerned with their urban neighbors? One reason could be that they depend heavily on each other and therefore have a mutually symbiotic relationship. Another reason could be that the two communities dislike and ridicule each other and will always stick-it-to-em whenever they get the chance.

Why do companies keep wages low when it costs them in the long run? Perhaps because there's so much competition, they can't afford to stay in business unless they pay the lowest wages and buy the cheapest products. In my opinion, businesses like that don't deserve to be in business. Part of the reason I'm in favor of increasing minimum wages is because I'd like to see those hapless businesses go out of business. Better businesses will pick up the slack.

I appreciate how you linked stagnant wages and spiraling housing costs:

"Because wages are stagnant, middle-class workers become more dependent on rising home values to make ends meet. This removes an important democratic check on speculation, which is profoundly undemocratic, by chaining a large number of voters to Wall Street's real estate roulette table."

This is obvious here in the Puget Sound. I haven't heard others talk about this linkage.

Also the "financialization" of wages that creates pressure on workers to borrow on future wages via credit cards etc.

The young are being ground up by these forces and don't have adequate tools or representation to fight back.

One other thought - perhaps some people in rural areas own businesses that do business in cities and would be subject to the minimum wage increase. In that regard, they may lobby their non-city representatives to support a statewide ban on local minimum wage increases. That would allow them to continue taking advantage of the resources made available in a city, without having to worry about the city asking them to pay the underlying costs of doing so in the form of increased wages.

@5:

Or maybe they're just assholes who resent the idea that anyone else should be doing better financially than themselves...

@6 is right.

Based on the Stranger's obsession to objectify rural Americans in a particular way, kinda think urban and rural haters have a lot common. They are different in what they hate, but similar in their irrationality about it.

If it makes you feel any better, it's the way our brain works. It's why we have optical illusions. Tricks played on the mind, not on the eye. We can't help ourselves. It's easy to find faults in others, especially if we find them threatening.

Two Israelis, Kahneman and Tversky, studied why people, even very smart ones, at times can make very bad decisions and show a lack in critical thinking despite all evidence to the contrary. It matters in the real world whether it's Wall Street firms managing your pension plan or 401K or pilots flying your airplane. Think about the forensic after the 2008 crash. The signs were there. Sure there was greed. These guys knew what was coming, but killed their golden goose anyway. It matters if you can't believe how people voted for Trump, a man who will harm them more.

The point is as long as people don't acknowledge problems within themselves and their positions, but readily identify it in others, we'll end with more Trumps. A Trump of the left, right, or middle, matters not. It's the destruction left behind.

That's what airlines discovered in training pilots about safety and cockpit management. It's about listening to others -to contrarians. It's about situational awareness including the awareness you may miss something, it's knowledge and knowing your bias and developing good communication skills. It's something hospitals and surgery teams are trying to do to reduce medical errors and deaths.

Seems common sense, yet so very hard to do. That's why we are so irrational.

And people wonder why sheep in Ohio are really nervous.

Hey - I'm a "rainbird" down here in Phoenix for the winter. As all big cities, Phoenix has a Democrat mayor and majority of the city council. Progressive initiatives usually win (but not the marijuana one this year, thanks to a couple million last-minute dollars). Thanks to gerrymandering, Republicans control the state. But in Phoenix, a light shines.

@8, "It's about listening to others -to contrarians."
The Mondragon cooperative group in Spain has a saying for that: Save a chair at the table for the green dog. Meaning, listen to the contrarian.

Sadly, American's are "fiercely independent", which does lend itself to our 'Yankee Ingenuity', following the psychological concept of "the weaknesses of strengths" also means that we're very susceptible to the blindspots problem you describe.

Until American's learn how to truly work together cooperatively, and stop constantly fighting like petulant children ("rural assholes!", "urban faggots!", to call out merely two, etc.) we're gonna have a rough go of it.

Another problem is the fucking size of this g-d nation. It's so huge that organizing collectively for effective balance of power is damn near impossible. Which is, in fact, by design. (Cf. The Federalist Papers)

divide and conquer. We are divided, and being led around by the nose.

oh well.