Excellent and comprehensive coverage of most all the “angles”!

Only noted two points you missed:

Employers already operate with the bare minimum of employees they need.

There are no ‘surplus’ employees kept on payroll, that can be ejected, to cut labor overhead in response to a mandated minimum wage hike !

In the short run, employers’ “demand” for labor is thus “inelastic”. They will pay whatever is the going, or stipulated compulsory minimum, wage rate, or curtail/cease operations due to insufficient labor input.

And while it is true that over time, employers will seek to eliminate that more costly $15/hr labor, …

Employers’ already ARE automating and outsourcing as aggressively as possible to ELIMINATE as many workers as they can, as fast as possible, for MANY reasons besides the wage rate.

Workers are a pain in the employers’ ass for MANY reasons other than wages !!

Secondly,

In excusing underpayment of “young” workers,

based on their ‘not needing’ as much income, by virtue of their parents supporting them at home, …

The employer is effectively saying that; they are justified in having that young person’s parents SUBSIDIZE that businesses’ labor costs !

Same as when the company doesn’t pay adequate employee medical benefits, forcing the employee to seek indigent, TAXPAYER FUNDED, medical care !!!

WHY should the general public co-fund that businesses’ operating costs ?!

Maybe we should also be taxed to fund repairs on the businesses’ machinery when THAT breaks down !?

Corporate sub-par funding of its labor input component, in SO many ways, is just Corporate America’s way of sucking up YET ANOTHER subsidy from the general public. !