> But I think it's silly to suggest that you can hike it to whatever you want and the theories from economists will align and the consumer won't pay more; that

> But I think it's silly to suggest that you can hike it to whatever you want and the theories from economists will align and the consumer won't pay more; that it just comes from profits and that won't affect anything. Well neither me nor the economists suggest that. For a given money supply, a marginal increase in minimum wage will act as wealth redistribution as long as there are profits to redistribute. On average a single worker can only do a fixed amount of workW, so a business that needs a minimum amount of work Z done to be viable needs to employ at least N = Z / W people. At some point on the increasing wage scale the profits run out and you cannot employ the minimum number of workers and the business is forced to close. At that point the only alternative is to increase the money supply, which is where inflation and general price increases will come from. Note that the wealth redistribution is aggregate: the minimum wage increases are intended to redistribute wealth to the lower-middle class. There will be less jobs (I am surprised there was not more job loss found in these studies), but the total amount of money going to minimum-wage employees will increase. Businesses that rely on exploiting workers to be viable should go bankrupt. Suppressing wages to prop up otherwise unviable businesses is a slippery slope that ends up at "well, at least we feed the slaves."