Many eons ago --before surface mount was commonplace-- I was employing engineering students to stuff circuit boards for a low volume product (a few thousand units per year).
Part of the job entailed bending component leads based on how they had to be mounted to the board. I didn't have the money or the volume for fancy automated tools. We used prototyping-level hand tools to bend the components. After wave soldering we'd clip the leads by hand and test.
Back then minimum wage was $6 or $7. I was paying the kids $10.
I bought an old Bridgeport CNC milling machine for $1,800. I devoted a week to making better lead-forming tools and a mass lead cutting machine using a cheap router motor.
Within a week the same worker could do nearly ten times more work. I eventually let go of half the crew.
Costs are everything in business. If government unilaterally and unnaturally forces an increase in costs businesses will naturally respond with cost-saving measures and technology. This can also include taking the work to lower labor cost markets...forever.
That's how it works in the real world. At one point an artificially high minimum wage will result in less jobs, not more.
Artificially high? If you're making a profit but your employees need public assistance, you're literaly profiting at the expense of the taxpayers. You are in effect benefiting from an artificially low prevailing wage. If you can't afford to pay them a living wage, society would be better off if resources were allocated elsewhere.
Since hiring a person can only increase that person's income, and decrease the amount of welfare they can claim, this is wrong. If there were a better allocation of that person's labor (e.g. a higher paying job) that person would surely take it.
Would society be better of banning this machine, because it couldn't produce a "living wage"? Because this is what you are proposing.
I have no clue what you do. I'll pick something for you. Let's say you are a Personal Chef.
Let's say I am someone who needs a Personal Chef.
I put up an ad on Craigs List.
You show up and seem to be qualified.
I offer you $3 per hour.
You are probably going to tell me to go fuck myself.
I then offer you $8 per hour.
Same response.
$10 per hour?
$15 per hour?
$25 per hour?
$50 per hour?
You want $75. I say, I won't go more than $50 until I know that you can cook. That will take 90 days. After that I agree to raise your hourly rate by $5 per quarter until we get to $75 per hour.
Ah, we have a deal.
You see, I can't force you to work for me for any wage other than what you are willing to accept for the job at hand. We have to agree on a number that works for both of us.
Not one business, manager or business owner is forcing any person to come to their establishment every day and work for any wage whatsoever. At least not in the US. People seek out these jobs, apply for them and then go to work every day.
Not a living wage? Don't take the job! Don't blame it on the business. Don't take the job! Go find a job where your skill set will result in higher wages! How can this possibly be the business's fault in any imaginable reality? Do. Not. Take. The. Job.
Ah, no choice because you have no marketable skills? Who's fault is that? How can that possibly be any business's fault?
Your "artificially low prevailing wage" is imaginative utter nonsense. The only thing that is artificial is forcing a wage floor on all businesses regardless of market realities.
It is precisely this kind of government meddling that PUSHES jobs out of the country.
In your reality people flipping burgers in Los Angeles would make $25 per hour (barely a "living wage" in Los Angeles by some measures) and Big Mac would cost $35, fries another $10. Guess what? In that reality you are going to have robots running McDonald's because NOBODY is going to pay those prices. All those people who would be flipping burgers at a market rate are going to be out of work and possibly on some kind of a government social program. In other words: The very concept is nothing but insane. You don't create jobs by destroying the ability of businesses to hire people. You create jobs by letting the market function without interference from those who don't have a clue as to how the real world works.
I know you are going to claim that McDonalds can still make money while paying more. Really? Based on what? Do you own a fast food franchise? I know at least two people who do within walking distance from my house. Profits are thin. Very thin. Only restaurants that benefit from incredible locations have a little breathing room. Nobody is swimming in money.
I've bootstrapped and launched a number of businesses. I've created lots of jobs, from receptionists and warehouse workers to highly paid software and hardware engineers. Before that I've held jobs all the way from $4.00 per hour to $250K per year. I've been on both sides of the equation.
The ignorance of people who present views such as yours never fails to get my blood pressure up. You, sir, have no fucking clue what you are talking about. Go start a business in your garage with your own money and grow it to twenty or thirty people. Then we can talk. Until then, please don't think that what you are constructing in your mind is even remotely similar to what happens in the real world.
Yes, a little rough. So be it. I'm kind of tired of being politically correct with the clueless.