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Very few companies are unable to hire the staff they need because they have to pay a couple of dollars more per hour. It just means they have to find their savings elsewhere. As long as there is no minimum wage and no benefits to speak of, then there is no incentive to look at less palatable savings - it is always easiest to skimp on the workforce.
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Let's get it out of the way -- I think there should be a minimum wage set by government. I think it's society sending a signal to the markets that workers should not be taken advantage of, which is always a danger, and here is a level we have kind of agreed on, below which we think you're kinda sorta taking advantage.
Also, I brotherylove you D, don't ever change.
~ with that outta the way ~
I agree that the new labor situation will put pressure on things other than workers. Everything is connected. Perhaps in our mythical business, the owners will not buy the new oven this year. Maybe they will take a lower wage themselves. Maybe they will raise the price of their burgers. Maybe they will do with one less cook. Maybe they will cook more hours themselves. Maybe they will have customers with more money who will absorb the price increase. Maybe with that new money they will hire more workers at the new wage.
Stop, all the possible outcomes are overwhelming!
Everything is connected. When you say "It just means they have to find their savings elsewhere" you have personalized a model business that jibes with how you want and expect it to work.
We like to imagine that business, because these models that appeal to us. And they do help us to think about what's involved.
But there are hundreds of thousands of business models out there, each one making hundreds of decisions every day. How do we know if our model business has anything to do with reality?
Here's another model: imagine one person in an office in a major city, running a very large Excel spreadsheet, and saying wow: if we automate the drinks machine we pay $25000 per store, but we save $11000 in labor each year, and using the present value calculation with low inflation we will turn a profit in first quarter 2018.
But even that is a cartoon of the economy, and a model that jibes blah blah blah.
Ugh, I'm an hour into this, let me just post and walk away.