[jlokier]

> I'm a business owner, and I'm not going to sit here eating up the cost of a higher minimum wage.

Yes you are.(1)

(1) "You" here means the collective cohort. You as an individual business owner might be principled enough to refuse to hire, but I believe the data from other places that have a low but non-zero minimum wage indicates your cohort will usually raise wages, rather than not hire. Bearing in mind minimum wages are still very low wages. If business is so tight that would catastrophically affect profits, you will usually raise prices, and the cost isn't so much eaten as the pressures in the business adjust around the new reality; this is made easier by the fact that your competitors are doing the same.

> or they do, and they ultimately want more people dependent on them.

At least in some countries, raising minimum wage makes people less dependent on the state, not more. Two reasons: People need less top up from the state to plug the gap between low wages and high costs of housing and health, and people are more motivated to take a job because it makes a material difference to their situation, indeed poverty-level wages (far below minimum) often cost more to earn than they provide.