Wow. God bless you for being a Republican, but ... Where to start. Just ... jaw-dropping, wow.
Raising the minimum wage necessarily loses jobs, the same way that raising standards for admission necessarily loses applicants.
I'm self-employed and set my own wage. When minimum wage goes up, I must raise my wage accordingly to avoid an effective wage decrease. If I don't, I must do more jobs for the same amount of money, which on the balance sheet pencils out as jobs lost.
Raising the minimum wage is anti-capitalist and anti-free markets. It is also the root cause of many afflictions. It is a major component of illegal immigration, because our "minimum wage" is a heck of a lot of money to someone fully capable of doing the work who lives in a cardboard village. Plenty of 'em in Mexico. It is a major component of bad work ethic and flawed values in teens: without minimum wage, the machine shop or garage on the corner, or the homebuilder up the street, could employ and mentor countless bright but non-academic kids into exceptionally challenging and productive life paths, but minimum wage goes a long way to making it a losing proposition. Kids remain unemployed and retain an entitlement ethic with regard to wage.
I just think it is stupid to fight over. I mean Maryland is patting themselves on the back for making it 10.10 but not until 2018 and by then it will be worth 7.25. It just seems like a waste of time to fight over something that does not even take effect until a long while from now and why not just attach it to the Social Security annual increase....I think this would be an awesome idea. Everyone gets a raise but it would be very low raise or else they might finally pay Social Security recipients enough to get their money back at least. Win win for all.