That's a good thing. Who doesn't want to reduce the welfare and disability roles? The key is to create the environment where there are jobs for them.
2. Encourage businesses to outsource or seek other means of reducing head count such as employing software or hardware robots.
Yes, import tariffs are important to keep jobs from going off-shore. Robotics is coming and we will be dealing with the fall out sooner or later.
3. Encourage more immigration if businesses cannot find ways to reduce headcount.
Failure to address immigration will ruin this country, regardless of what we do with minimum wage. It might ruin it a little faster if we raise the wage but leave the borders open.
4. Ultimately, businesses would have to hike prices, accept lower profit margins, or find other ways to reduce costs.
That's true. The economy will seek equilibrium again. But it is not super fast. Thus the short-term effect of raising the minimum will have real benefits or consequences.
5. If businesses chose to hike prices it would put upward pressure on price inflation. In turn, unions would demand still more wage hikes.
Unions are unions. A zebra is not going to change it's stripes just because you put in a minimum wage hike. Policy should not be based on what unions might or might not do.
6.If businesses chose to eat the costs, it would put negative pressures on the stock market.
Probably. But if the flow of funds to greater numbers of individuals results in increased demand in the marketplace, that would result in positive pressures. Hard to know which will win in the short term or long term.
Everybody in our country would be playing by the same rules, but raising it without restoring the import tariffs is crazy and will result in more off-shoring.
I don't follow your logic here. How would a rise in minimum wage increase the flow of funds to a greater number of individuals? The rest of your points and comments suggest that fewer people would be working. Those that were working would have more dollars in their pockets, but price increases everywhere else (inflation), would allow them to buy fewer, more costly things.
Thus, a raise in the minimum wage would have a negative effect on the marketplace.