Direct experience with minimum wage...

Some academics, and some politicians, are working overtime to convince us that raising the minimum wage will not hurt---will help actually---the minimum wage earner. I believe I've made (or repeated) every case against raising the minimum wage that I'm capable of from my vantage point.

I do have employees, but their productivity---and the competition from other employers in my industry---demands that I pay them wages much higher than the minimum. So I can't speak from direct experience. However, Andy Puzder, CKE Restaurants' CEO, can (be sure to read the entire piece and/or watch the interview:

When there’s a demand for labor, the cost of labor goes up. When there’s no demand for labor, it goes down and you can’t solve that problem by having the government artificially mandate a wage increase when there’s no economic growth to support that,” says Puzder. “What businesses do is they increase their prices and they move to automation so you have less jobs.