You would change where some of it goes. You also force companies to either not employ some people or to employ them on a basis that loses the company money every week.
Imagine someone today capable of creating $1 of variable gross profit for their employer every 5 minutes before they were paid. Under a free labor market or a $10/hour minimum wage, that employee has stable and good employment prospects. Make the minimum wage $15/hour and change nothing else and that employee is on shakier ground. Either they must hope that their employer doesn’t know their individual productivity (likely somewhat true), that there is so much money being generated elsewhere that the company doesn’t care if they lose some here, that their job is practically required structurally (no one will close their shop from 10-12 and 2-4 just because the foot traffic drops off and those hours lose some money), or that their employer feels charitable but wants to dress that charity up in work clothes.
Total wages have some elasticity. I have to believe it’s not generally beyond what is advantageous to the employer and their customers (who are paying all the wages ultimately).
Apple is making $435,000 profit per employee. There is clearly some slack there. Under your arguments, shouldn't that profit per employee be significantly smaller?
If Apple had a clear path to make even more money by expanding and employing more people, I think they would. As it stands, they’ve got expansion opportunities fairly risk-free by having millions of devs 30% working for them, so that might be their focus.
I’m not saying companies will invest right up to break even, but that they will attempt to avoid going beyond that point.
Imagine someone today capable of creating $1 of variable gross profit for their employer every 5 minutes before they were paid. Under a free labor market or a $10/hour minimum wage, that employee has stable and good employment prospects. Make the minimum wage $15/hour and change nothing else and that employee is on shakier ground. Either they must hope that their employer doesn’t know their individual productivity (likely somewhat true), that there is so much money being generated elsewhere that the company doesn’t care if they lose some here, that their job is practically required structurally (no one will close their shop from 10-12 and 2-4 just because the foot traffic drops off and those hours lose some money), or that their employer feels charitable but wants to dress that charity up in work clothes.
Total wages have some elasticity. I have to believe it’s not generally beyond what is advantageous to the employer and their customers (who are paying all the wages ultimately).