Consider that Seattle has (I think) the highest minimum wage in the country ($16/hr).
The current minimum wage in Seattle is
$12/hr.; there are different classifications, and the highest minimum wage will exceed
$16/hr. in 2020, however, that's for large employers. Smaller employers whose employees can be projected to earn
$2.25/hr. in tips will pay only
$13.50.
Even at
$16.39/hr., the minimum wage is not enough to qualify for a one-bedroom apartment without assistance.
Who thinks that you can live in SF, Seattle, NYC and work at McDonald's for any reason other than a part-time job or a temporary solution.
That attitude didn't work at Taco Bell or Pizza Hut in Salem, Oregon, in the '90s, either. It was a closer pitch, though: At minimum wage, you could presume a full forty-hour work week and qualify for an apartment at
$300/mo.
And on that point, we might recall what I said earlier:
• Those who are old enough can remember Clinton and Bush Sr., or other politicians, arguing about job creation, with the bitterly muttered punch line among workers being, yeah, sure, but these were insecure, low wage jobs; sure, the factories are gone, but, hey, at least they created a bunch of fast-food jobs by giving tax breaks to large corporations.
We come back to the business model:
"Who thinks that you can … work at McDonald's for any reason other than a part-time job or a temporary solution?"
Great question. Now enforce the answer as a matter of societal consequence and process.
McD's will lose a bunch of tax credits, because the jobs can't be projected to achieve, for instance, the WOTC need. And, sure, that's fine with me. But it won't be fine with them. And you can blithely rely on Beverly Hills fallacies, but, once again, something goes here about
living in the real world↑.
†
One aspect that remains is why anything might matter. To wit:
It's really a solution without a problem. Whether you have a minimum wage law or not doesn't really matter. We have more or less full employment.
We come back to the question fo the Trump presidency: Why does any of this matter, say, to you? The problem with touting employment numbers while ignoring quality of life is allegedly what brought us to the current diminishment of the working classes: Real wages and purchasing power became such a persistent crisis that employment rates, such as "more or less full employment", does not seem to help relieve either growing financial distress or living dissatisfaction.
In terms of the Trump presidency, declining real wages and purchasing power, the loss of property and security in the face of mounting expenses, greater expectation, and lesser effective remuneration, is ostensibly a problem driving all manner of societal anxiety, unsettlement, and anger.
Addressing the question from a standpoint presuming such frailty of business that it just can't work unless inflicting needless cruelty against human beings doesn't really help anything, except maybe your personal satisfaction, which, in the end, amounts to pretty much the same.