Raising the minimum wage is actually lowering the bar. Minimum wage jobs have never been meant to be life sustaining but entry level. What happens when we take away entry level pay? Well that's very simple we remove jobs.
Think about this for a minute. You have an idea to start a business. Lets say you're going to start a company building widgets. You start out by yourself and your typical day is spent with 50/50 you build widgets then you go out and sell those widgets. There will be a maximum number of widgets you can build in that time period which is half of your working day. Now anybody who has been self employed knows your working day isn't 8 hours but more like 12-16. So you've maxed out on the number if widgets you can build in 8 hours and you have to spend the next 5 hours out pounding the pavement in order to sell these widgets. You can't take away time from selling in order to make more widgets because sells will plummet and if you can't sell them you can't afford to build them. Congratulations you've reached a milestone and you have to expand ie: hire your first employee.
Now even though you've reached this milestone you're still barely making it financially because well you knew you'd have to make sacrifices in order to build your business. Most entrepreneurs don't make even today's minimum wage if they factor in how many hours the out in.
Now back to you're dilemma you have to hire somebody. You do the math and if you hire somebody to help build widgets you'll have slightly more time to sell but if you're only hiring one other person you're not going to double production and sales. Business isn't going to automatically be 100% better. But wait a minute if you're not even making minimum wage and barely getting by how the heck are you going to hire somebody else to make widgets and pay them this new and improved minimum wage plus all the taxes and benefits that you the business owner now owe this entry level widget maker? I guess you could take away from the small amount you've been pulling out to feed your family who has already made so many sacrifices in order for you to take the risk if starting this widget company. But wait why would you do that? Why would you want to take a step back after busting your ass to get to this level. After risking your home and putting your ass on the line?
People if we continue to raise the minimum wage we are shooting ourselves in the foot. Smart people aren't going to start small businesses if it doesn't pencil out. Remember they are the smart ones!