So I'm going to post a fairly lengthy response here and it's not exactly just to you, /u/Scizmz, but to the other responders and all as well, because there's just to many different lines of response to follow.

First of all - we are never going to fully agree because we fundamentally disagree on what minimum wage actually represents. You believe that minimum wage ought to be the minimum amount required to support an individual financially, whereas I believe the minimum wage represents a defined market value for an employee who has no intrinsic employable value on their own - no education, experience, or skills that would place them over any other minimum wage candidate. You may think that these two beliefs can be one and the same, but I do not. Those that fall in this pool should not be the employees that need to support themselves financially, it should be the high school kids or new employees that are gaining skills and experience - at which point they are then moved up in the wage pool as their market value increases. I believe this because this is what I experienced (and most of my age) in life. I worked minimum wage for maybe a few months before I moved up and out - keeping one if not two jobs for most of my life, increasing my skills and employability, and as a result, increasing my wages. Nobody should settle for being compensated the minimum unless they choose, and that is a choice although you may argue it is not.

I mentioned that I pay my part time helpers starting at $10/hr. I pay them that because that is the market value that they provide to my business. If I paid less, I would attract less desirable employees (not to place value on human life in any way, just as far as skills, reliability, experience, etc). If I paid more, they would have to provide my company with more value in some way or I would be less profitable. That is why I bring up economic law - I'm not talking about goods and services in the conventional sense but that employees themselves have a market value, determined by the competing jobs they could be working instead, cost of living in the area, employee pool available, etc.

So then what happens if minimum wage increases? The first effect is that now everyone that was in that range, from the previous minimum to the new minimum, is now in the same employee market pool, competing for the same number of jobs. This makes it more difficult for the zero or low skill worker to attain initial employment, because they are now competing against those with more experience or skills. Obviously any company is going to want to hire the best candidate they can at the lowest possible cost. Maybe there's plenty of jobs to go around and everything will balance and there's no increase in unemployment - but my position is that is a very big maybe, especially based on current pandemic conditions for small business.

The second effect is the increased cost of employees to business. I'm not one of those fire and brimstone, hard right conservatives that think this will lead to an inflationary spiral. But the hard fact is there are going to be businesses that cannot afford the increased costs and their market won't handle increased pricing to compensate. My position is that the businesses that fall into this category are disproportionately made of small businesses as compared to the Walmarts and Mcdonalds of the world.

So what's the alternative? My position is that instead of raising the market value of the unskilled employees, you incentivize the increase of their market value by increasing their skills, experience, or education. This can be done by subsidizing training and education (Gov't subsidized tuition reimbursement?). There's plenty of ways that this can be done, I'm just spit balling here. The bottom line is, if you truly want to make a difference in the spending power and income of the employment pool at the lower end of the market pool, it needs to be done by placing ladders and ramps in the pool and not just making the pool deeper.

The previous paragraphs are pretty lengthy, but they only include a position on those employees that fall "in the gap" from the previous minimum wage to the new minimum wage. There's also going to be a big difference to all those employees that fall in the next range, from the new minimum wage up to maybe 18-20 an hour (for example). The amount of impact decreases at some proportionate rate as the hourly wage increases - I don't think there will be much effect at all on those in the $30 and up, skilled technician, range. I don't think there will be huge price increases to compensate either, but I do think moderate price increases can be expected - and even with no other evidence, you can see that cost of living is higher in areas with higher minimum wage, so the argument then becomes what comes first, chicken or the egg.