2. While pay may increase, taxes also increase when a person moves from one tax bracket to another. Also Government benefits can be denied when a worker earns too much money. So a worker making $15 per hour, working fewer hours, taxed more and less government assistance can be worse off.
3. Businesses are less likely to hire entry level employees when their cost exceeds their contribution to the company.
4. What is really killing businesses with these changes is the rate of change. Going from $7.25 to $15.00 in a short time is difficult to pass along to the customers. And it is not just the worker earns a higher pay, governments calculate all types of taxes, unemployment charges and worker comp programs off employees pay. So these raise also.
If (when!) the minimum goes up; all other prices will adjust to match; as they always have.
What WILL gouge you is the fact that tax recipts will go UP over all, since the higher wages will be taxed at a higher rate than now.
When you buy a $12 steak now, and you make $20 bucks and hour; the $24 steak when you make $40 bucks an hour is the same percentage.
Your $40K a year is going to be taxed at a lower percentage than your $80K will be!