[netfire]

Whether you support a minimum wage increase or not, to think that it won't affect other people than those that are getting the increase just isn't true. Here's some possible side effects.

- Prices of products or services increase to compensate for the increase in salary.

- Higher paid employees don't get raises since the money that was previously allocated for that is being used to pay for the minimum wage increase. (This seems to be happening in this case, where more experienced workers received little to no increase in compensation).

- Other benefits are removed or reduced to cover the additional cost (health insurance, vacation, sick leave, etc)

- The company can no longer be profitable with the additional costs and reduces the size of their workforce or shuts down completely.

Which of these side effects (if any) occur, depends on the company and its current profits, management and/or investors, as well as how much they are already paying employees.

[MaysonL]

Or perhaps the company makes more money because the minimum wage workers are happier, work harder, and don't quit as often, leading to lower turnover costs, and because the company's customers (often minimum wage workers themselves) have more money to spend. Note the steady increase in restaurants and other food service companies in Seattle as the minimum wage increase phases in[0].

[0] http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2015/07/chipotle-spices-up-the-...