A lot of people are scared/annoyed with workers actually demanding a living wage because they are certain that the middle class and up worked their way up or inherently deserve what they have.
It breaks their brains to think that people working hard their whole lives can still remain impoverished by no fault of their own. Admitting this would mean they would have to unpack the fact that bad things can and do happen to people who don’t deserve it, for no reason. That means chaos. That means no sky daddy divvying out karmic justice to people who do good or bad things. Their Just World fallacy crumbles. That means that anything can happen to THEM for no reason, in an unfair, chaotic and exploitative world.
It’s far easier to justify walking over a sleeping person on the street when you think that person must have gotten what they secretly deserved, and that you could never end up like that because you are “good” or that you’ve “earned” what should be available to everyone. It’s far easier to downplay your part in the exploitation if you think people naturally get what’s coming to them, and that God must just love you more or something.