AND DON'T FORGET ABOUT THE COTTON GINS!

100 years really? try 30 years hell the digital computer isn't even a 100 years old yet and look at how that changed things (cloud computing is even worse why have an inhouse IT team when you can pay microsoft or amazon to do it for less).

As to doctors, for surgery it's already happening http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/05/smart-sewing-machine-nails-worlds-first-autonomous-soft-tissue-surgery/

Ok so let's get down to brass tacks here with the whole $15 thing and examine it in relation to McDonalds.

So McDonalds has a variety of different pay levels with some entry positions making sub 8 and middle and lower-middle management making 11 or 12 so let's say the average $9 an hour. So assuming a 30 hour or so week (McDonald's standard for full time), an increase to $15 an hour would result in a 3.93 *billion* dollar increase in payroll costs alone for McDonalds from their 420000 direct employees (remember that, that's important). This is before taxes so that means this 3.93 billion comes out of McDonalds' operating income, which sits at 7.1 billion. So before taxes, that brings us down to 3.2 billion dollars. Taxes and interests and other post-operating income expenses currently takes up 2.6 billion dollars. So we are looking at a total of 600 *million* left over in true profits.

And that's only from the impacts of the pay raise for the direct employees. It does *not* factor in the rest of the employees in the states. The vast majority of McDonalds' 1.7 million employees through franchises and company owned and operated locations are in the States. So let's say roughly 1,000,000 more employees are in the States. That means that there's a total payroll cost expense cumulatively of 9.63 billion dollars. However, each franchise will bear the weight of it's cost increase largely on its own. Meaning many locations of middling business will become unsustainable and thus close. Which means McDonalds the company will suffer losses as a result of loss of franchise fees and sales cuts. Which brings us lower than that 600 million dollar bottom line. We're talking sub 500 or even 400 million. And that's being awfully generous and assuming the vast majority of McDonalds locations at this time make more than enough to support the payroll cost increase.

But that's not the end. You see the next issue comes up with crew management/leadership (swing/shift managers) costs. Many such managers at this moment don't make $15 either. So all these expenses are going to just be for bringing the whole crew at these places to the same exact level and it doesn't take a business wiz to see that's just not going to work. Right now, being a middle manager or leader in a crew brings you up some $2 an hour. So that's tens of millions or more in direct payroll expenses add to McDonalds from its direct employees and another burden to pile on to franchises.

So then we get to that last tidbit that people bring up: those greedy, grubby CEOs and executives hogging all that sweet cash. Well, to help you people out who are making this argument I am going to set aside the reality for a moment and give you the ideal situation. Let's assume - despite all evidence to the contrary - the executives at McDonalds make similar to the Chipotle executives, whose CEO makes upwards of 25 million dollars a year. That is less than 1% of the payroll increase cost caused by the $15 wage. 1/157 to be fairly exact. And the thing is, the McDonalds CEO doesn't make anything close to that as his base salary. So unless they are giving him hundreds of millions in bonuses a year (they aren't), he could lower his own pay to $15 an hour and effect next to *nothing* in terms of McDonald's bottom line. It would be a drop in the bucket. This idea that a handful of people at the top of McDonalds - or most big companies (almost all, actually) - are hogging enough money to pay their employees immensely more is just not accurate.

And this is *MCDONALDS*, the poster child for miserliness. And yet their bottom line would be devastated by a pay increase. Could they *survive*? Certainly, but it would require a LOT of changes. Thousands of locations would need to close, prices would need to go up, jobs and structure would need to be changed or cut. It's not like the 1.4 million US employees would just start making more $15, it is always, always, always more than that. Your talking about over 10 BILLION dollars in new payroll costs just to facilitate the new wage. Much less the other pay increases common sense demands. McDonalds and many companies would have to fundamentally change their business to accommodate this and they wouldn't all be pleasant changes.

All that to say this whole thing is not as simple as "make the rich people give us the money," cause as I just pointed out they don't have the money. Which is why I say we have to avoid the class-warfare mindset. It's a kneejerk reaction to find out x CEO makes millions and demand bigger pay checks but it is a mistake to assume that the former is the reason you don't have the latter.

Edit:  To be clear, I don't agree with the current minimum wage.  But I am trying to show two things:  1) this $15 an hour is no small change and 2) there's a reason I say Federal needs to low ball and States need to make the ultimate minimum wage decision.

11 pages of discussion on this and the robot replacement of humans... yet no one seems to have picked up the obvious PR hole in the EX CEOs statement.

-- it’s cheaper to buy a $35,000 robotic arm than it is to hire an employee who’s inefficient making $15 an hour bagging French fries

That is the same saying that there is no value in a PS4 console... which is broken, or that one human can run up stairs 1000x the speed of another... who is in a wheelchair.
He is comparing a 35k robotic arm to a worker who isn't doing his job, by the same logic you could say that same worker does a much better job than said robotic arm... when it's plugged out.
But everyone seemed to jump on the.... Robots replacing all jobs wagon instead, I guess it's more fun to talk about sci-fi?

So we phase out all lower income earners with robots but lower income earners are the ones that generally eat at Mcdonalds and other fast food places.

Says a guy whose position makes over $9200/h.

They'll have to. Otherwise there might be some sort of luddite movement against those kind of machines.

Wage hikes do not cause inflation. Inflation is caused by the total monetary supply. And sorry, but when the CEO of McDonalds makes over $9200/h, you aren't going to tell me he's worth more than 613x the value of the people who actually perform the basic economic task of McDonalds?

Those specific numbers?  No.  But he is far, far more valuable in what he does.  Running a company that big?  99% of their employees couldn't do that.  Shoot, the vast majority of people in general can't.  Trust me, I've seen average people try to run small businesses and run them right into the ground.  Rarity of the skill required is a major factor in pay.  Anyone can do a standard crew member job.  Few can do a CEO or President's job.  And as I said in my post on the previous page (the really long one :P), all that money he makes is a tiny drop compared to the astronomical rise in payroll costs to pay everyone 15+. 

And no, technically inflation doesn't directly follow from increased wages.  But the practical effects thereof on the average man would occur:  cost of retail goods would go up as would general cost of living.  A $15 minimum wage would constitute an enormous rise in payroll costs for many companies, they must recoup that somewhere and it won't be from the executive salaries like many like to think.  The executives just don't make enough in most cases.

The USA's Income inequality is one of the highest amongst the developed world.
See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_inequality_in_the_United_States#International_comparisons

Ranked 41 out of 141. Ouch!

In the end, if you are happy with the status quo, who am I to argue? I don't live there, but I do have a higher standard of living than the majority of Americans.

You would not save much money.
A rise in the minimum wage will likely mean a rise for all other employment that trends higher than minimum wage, that offsets the small extra costs in your burgers, it also ensures people can have a higher standard of living, something the USA is falling behind on... And took a fairly chunky hit during the GFC.

Remember I live in a country where the minimum wage is higher than $15 (Almost $17), I am living on the other side of the divide.

Besides... A rise in the minimum wage WILL transform the lives of millions of Americans, it will completely change their standard of living... The top 1% with tax breaks and income increases? They would likely not even notice it.