I don't think raising the minimum wage will necessarily kill jobs as some other opponents of the practice suggest...
Really, the biggest impact is on everyone who already has jobs that make more than minimum wage.
For example, a person who makes $40k/year when the minimum wage is $7.35 has more money left over after all expenses are paid than a person making $40k/year if the minimum wage were $10.10.
...simply because the cost of goods go up.
I think raising the minimum wage also has a somewhat negative impact on smaller companies by making them less competitive with the big box stores.
Stanford (I believe???) did a study that showed that a big box store like Walmart or Target could offset a minimum wage increase to $14/hour and only raise the price of their products by an average of $0.12. (The simply logic being, the number of sales they make is exponentially larger than the number of employees they have).
This study is often cited by several people who support minimum wage increase as their rationale behind why it should be dramatically increased.
If you only look at big box stores, then the answer appears to be cut and dry...however, if you look at smaller operations that don't do the kind of volume that walmart does, like a hometown grocery store...do you think they could support an increase like that by only raising the cost of goods $0.12? Not a chance...
The impact of minimum wage increases is the smallest on companies that are already the biggest.
As it is, you can walk into a Walmart and get a digiorno pizza for $4.99...you buy that pizza at a small hometown grocery store, it's $6.59 (I use this example because I picked one up on the way home last night from my local grocery store
)
...small businesses already have a hard enough time competing with big box stores like walmart...do you really want to throw a curve-ball into the market that only big box stores can absorb and handle gracefully within their business model? You're asking to have an eventual big box monopoly.
The only reason Walmart and Target's prices are as low as they are right now is because there's still enough small business out there that they need to undercut to stay in business (competition keeps prices lower)...you make it tougher and tougher for small companies to compete with walmart, those prices won't stay low forever. Now, instead of $4.99 for that frozen pizza to undercut the $6.59...walmart can charge $6.99 to undercut the small store's $8.59.
Go through this cycle one or two times, whatever gains that minimum wage increase initially provided have been negated by price increases and inflation.
(which, I'm surprised inflation hasn't been brought up more in this thread...inflation is one of the biggest detriments in the market today...way more than a low minimum wage)