Businesses generally deal with minimum wage increases by finding efficiencies in their business practices or slightly increasing prices if they have to, not cutting jobs. Of course: because they need staff to make their businesses run!

The minimum wage isn't earned only by people working at fast food restaurants and in service industry work - the average income for positions like nursing assistants, preschool teachers and paramedics are all under $15.

When workers make more money, they respond by being more productive in their jobs and are less likely to leave, reducing turnover costs. This puts money in business' pockets, and workers also then have more money to spend in the local economy.

The vast majority (over 80 percent) of fast-food and similar low wage service jobs (<$9.24/hr) are held by adults. A quarter are adults over 40. Another quarter are moms raising kids.

The fast-food industry is notorious for employing millions of Americans at poverty wages.

Most fast-food workers can't easily join a union, because they don't work directly for their parent company, such as McDonald's or Subway. Instead, they work for individual franchise owners, ensuring that each individual fast-food outlet would have to organize and win union recognition separately. So there's not one central employer to bargain with, as in a traditional union campaign.

A September 2015 poll found that, by a 3-1 margin, voters are more likely to support political candidates who favor raising the minimum wage.