Nonsensical rhetoric. If politicians made minimum wage, we'd have very very very shitty politicians, because nobody would want to do it. Also, politicians do not make much, especially considering what they could make in the private sector if they have the ability to get elected into office.
It's supposed to imply that if they actually understood the conditions that people had to live through (which many don't, as many politicians come from wealthy backgrounds and old money that negate the necessity of having an extremely well-paid job - it's the power of the position that draws people), that they would change them because they wouldn't be able to turn a blind eye to those circumstances, because they'd be living them. If politicians were forced to live on minimum wage, minimum wage wouldn't stay as low as it is for long.
Even if it couldn't be made a reality and politicians would never make minimum wage, the primary concept it suggests is that if politicians (and I more so mean the ones that do make a shit ton of money, because there are plenty of them, what with endorsements, campaign donations and the like - it's more than base salary at work here) actually had a greater understanding for and compassion towards their constituents, perhaps there would be some change.
As it is, despite you saying that "politicians do not make much," that is still much, much more than the desperately poor in the United States, and it allows them to live a cushy existence while others who hold down a minimum wage job live on the streets - happens all the time, a minimum wage job is a joke. I'm making $7.40/hr. right now, and yeah, I can get by for the most part, but depending on how many people you have to support and the cost of living where you're at, you could be thoroughly fucked. Couple that with the highly skewed distribution of wealth here in the US and there's no justification for not raising minimum wage and attempting to bring people a little more even with one another. There's enough money to do it, it's just that that money's in the pockets of extremely few people who have no incentive to change anything because they're quite content with their excessive amount of wealth and have no need to worry about the impoverished - they're comfortable where they're at.
So, that graffiti was all about taking a jab at the fact that often decision-makers make poor decisions because they have no compassion for, nor comprehension of what a large portion of the populace is going through (that portion, for instance, being the over 40 million people who live below the poverty line [more than the entire population of Canada, as I'm sure you know], which should be higher, anyway). It's kind of like how just about everyone who wrote legislation regarding abortion was an old, white, Christian male instead of *gasp* a woman, the only person who has the right to make decisions for her body. Politicians often can't make informed decisions, like one regarding wages, because they can't put themselves in the shoes of those who are affected by the decisions they make - if that could be made a reality, at least for a moment so that they could get a taste of what it's like (though even that might not sway them,
fucking disgusting greed), maybe, just maybe, something positive could come from it.
