Raising the minimum wage is bad for business, bad for taxpayers and bad for those the wage is supposed to help. In most government union jobs, you have a starting rate and top job rate. In most businesses, you are hired and if you meet certain metrics, you receive wage increases. Raising the minimum wage way beyond the national minimum wage also leads to business closures and moves to locations with a lower cost of getting workers. Raising the min to $16, then indexing it to inflation, drives inflation. Many municipalities are having a hard time finding employees that do the everyday services the taxpayers pay for. Even now we have a fast-food min wage at $15 and a decreed min wage for other jobs at $14.20. Many fast-food employers are paying $16 an hour to attract part time workers. How much work do you get out of someone at $14.20 when they know Burger King is paying $16? How about someone at a job that has been there for years and got up to $17 an hour, how do they like it? There are industries in this area that could move their operations to another state with a lower min. Pennsylvania’s min wage is $7.25. Employers there must start people at a competitive wage to attract employees and give raises to keep them. Because the min wage goes up here, costs of living will increase as well. Taxes will have to go up because the governments will have to renegotiate their contracts or resort to contracting out services, which will cost more. Businesses must pass the higher cost off to their customers. With the built-in min wage increases, employees will not feel like they earned the increase. Another consequence will be more “off the books” (under the table) employment.