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!

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!

Income inequality and wage stagnation finally took their place among the principal moral issues of our time.

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.

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.

When families can afford the basics, they can reinvest in their communities, and higher wages means a broader consumer base for businesses.

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.