Minimum wages have some power to make an industry favor higher-skilled work and automation(and therefore, more valuable work). When wages are low, the whole ind

Minimum wages have some power to make an industry favor higher-skilled work and automation(and therefore, more valuable work). When wages are low, the whole industry is obliged to use cheap and unskilled labor to stay cost-competitive. When that floor goes up, the businesses that shift their investment from labor and towards capital will survive by gaining the benefits of using automation. The resulting set of products are essentially a new marketplace: sometimes you produce more at lower cost, or less at higher cost but higher quality, but the consumer benefits from this introduction of technology either way. Therefore the consumer-friendly policy interpretation is to gradually raise minimum wages as new methods of using capital are introduced, and allow the labor to transition from the unskilled to the skilled jobs. However, what's left out is the skills gap in recruiting for the new jobs; it's hard to find qualified people, and it's hard to find a job right for you when the field is always changing. The market is not great at coordinating this transition on its own.