When you see the term "living wage" in an article you can stop reading. I would make an exception to this: You may continue reading if a definition of "living wage" is given, but no definition has ever been given, to my knowledge.
A company's obligations are 1) To obey the law and 2) Meet the demands of the stockholders. That's it.
The example I like to bring up: have you seen the people that shop for huge TVs at best buy? Their problem is not lack of "living wage".
No one ever brings up the fact that a marginal decrease in rate of GDP growth will leave people significantly poorer a generation down the line.
But measures of poverty aren't really designed to be reasonable. Everyone alive today is much more wealthy than the vast majority of people to have ever lived. Some definitions are relative: the bottom quintile.
If you define poverty as a percentage of the whole, unchanging, then you have defined an intractable problem. I suppose that is the point for bureaucrats and perpetual activists.
A company's obligations are 1) To obey the law and 2) Meet the demands of the stockholders. That's it.