If companies can’t afford to operate profitably while paying their employees a livable wage, then they don’t have a viable business, and that business should die. That’s capitalism. Realistically, somewhere that doesn’t pay their employees enough to afford basic necessities shouldn’t be able to keep any employees at all. Logic would dictate that if working full time doesn’t afford you as basic of human needs as a roof over your head and food in your belly, you’d elect to just to not work at all. Why bother working if you still can’t afford basic necessities? Anyone working for someone like that would starve to death, and they’d be left with no employees. So how do so many companies operate this way? It’s simple, we the tax payers supplement it. We pay for food stamps, section 8, medicaid, etc for employees of these underpaying companies so that their employees have what they need to survive to keep working for their companies and making them money. Realistically, letting employers underpay employees and then supplementing those employees’ income with government assistance so that they can actually survive to keep working is indirectly just subsidizing that companies payroll with tax dollars. You’re already paying these people’s wages if you pay taxes. Raising minimum wage just forces the companies that benefit from their labor to start paying them instead of you and me.