I am not a big fan of the minimum wage. But, if we are to have one, I think it would make more sense to have it set locally, rather than nationally. A living wage in New York City is vastly different than a living wage in rural Kentucky. Where I live, it would be difficult but not impossible to provide for oneself and a small family on a full time minimum wage job. In other parts of the country, I realize that this is not the case. In NYC, $15 may not be off the mark. Where I live, $15 would be extravagant and would cause many small and medium sized businesses to go under. Keep in mind that, if we pay unskilled workers $15 per hour, the market will push the wage of minimally skilled workers into the $20+ range and so on. This would mean that someone like me would either have to dramatically raise prices or would be paying my employees drastically more than I pay myself. I wouldn't necessarily have a problem with the latter, but I suspect that most business owners would.