I guess I would posit that if there is no discernible link between unemployment and raising the minimum wage then employers must be either accepting reduced profit margins or they’re passing along the increased labor costs to their customers through price increases. Otherwise, if there were no economic costs of raising the minimum wage why not increase it to $20, $50, or even $100 an hour so everyone would have more cash in their pockets to spend on imported goods??

You note that the majority of jobs paying near minimum wage are focused in the retail, agriculture, and restaurant sectors, specifically Fast Food. I would imagine that increased labor costs will hasten the demise of the “Dollar Menu” at many fast food chains, granted rising raw material costs have already significantly shrunk the size and offerings of “Dollar Menus”. Maybe when the dollar menu is finally made unprofitable by the Federal Reserve’s inflation of the monetary base the America plebs will begin to ask questions about the wisdom of conjuring up $85 billion a month to purchase Treasuries and MBS junk from the banks.