Wow. Who could have seen this coming?

Look, I'm sure that liberals are totally correct when they say that raising the minimum wage doesn't result in fewer jobs, higher prices, or both. Of course they're right. Or maybe not:

Wendy’s (WEN) said that self-service ordering kiosks will be made available across its 6,000-plus restaurants in the second half of the year as minimum wage hikes and a tight labor market push up wages.
It will be up to franchisees whether to deploy the labor-saving technology, but Wendy’s President Todd Penegor did note that some franchise locations have been raising prices to offset wage hikes.

It is absurd to contend that raising labor costs -- doubling them! -- will have no impact on businesses' ability to employ people at the same numbers they always have. Businesses will be forced to find ways to cut labor costs. Productivity increases cannot account for all of that. Job losses are inevitable, and no one except Marxist economists dispute that.

The federal government has no business setting wage levels. Labor costs in New York City are not the same is in Manning, South Carolina. What sane person mandates that entry-level employees in those two markets be paid the same rate? Both are likely being paid a wage that the market would not give them. The problem there is that the New York employee still can't live on the federal minimum wage, and the South Carolina employee will only see prices increase because of the wage hike. How does this help anyone?

Only 1.3 million people make minimum wage, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That is roughly 1.3 percent of the work force. And these people aren't supporting families. Only 2 percent of minimum-wage earners are married. More than half of this negligible part of the workforce is under 25 years old. Can somebody please explain to me why we are waging war on jobs that give young people an entry-level job in the workforce?

Hat tip to Hot Air.