system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: An increase in the minimum wage would hurt only the lower and middle classes

Over the last few years, and especially now with the popularity of Bernie Sanders, a heavily debated subject is the raising of the minimum wage to $15/hour. While many would expect this to strengthen the lower class and only decreasing the wealth of the upper class, I feel as if it would end up hurting those it is meant to help.   
  
These company's would now have to spend much more of their budget on paying employees, and it's not as if they're going to magically have more money. I understand that the increase of wealth in the lower class would eventually circulate back to the business's, but I highly doubt it would be enough to make up for the increased wages of their employees, and it definitely wouldn't happen right away. Since I highly doubt the CEO or other upper management would take cuts from their pay to make up for this, that leaves two possible solutions that I can see: 
  
The first would be to decrease the amount of employees. If approximately an equal percentage of employees are let go to the increase in pay the company will be able to function without upper management having to take a pay cut. While those who are able to keep there jobs would be greatly helped by this, for the most part it would just increase the unemployment rate; with these lay offs happening in a large portion of minimum wag paying company's there would be no demand for jobs while the supply would be sky rocketing. 
  
The other solution would be for the company to increase prices (for retail/restaurants). With increasing prices nobody would have to loose their job, however it would still end up hurting the lower class. Practically all people get there basic necessities and luxuries from retail and grocery stores- the lower and middle classes especially rely heavily on major stores such as Walmart or Target. Even if your paycheck is increasing you'd still end up paying more the things you already buy, taking a large chunk of your paycheck. 
  
While ideally an increased minimum wage seems perfect, it would in reality end up creating a combination of these two things. I'm sure I didn't hit on some points, so please try to change my view on this, I, as a minimum wage employee myself, would love to have a good reason to support raising it.

EDIT: ∆ Okay, my views been changed. I still don't think something as drastic as upping it to $15/hour right away would be a good idea, but I think a gradual increase could be really good. The biggest things that helped my view change were the historical instances of MW rising, the average proportion of price increase vs. wage increase, as well as the fact that businesses are already operating with the minimum number of employees and that jobs wouldn't just become expendable. I really wish I could reply to more comments but I can't at the moment, thanks to everybody who replied!
gpt
Cost of living does go up when you raise the minimum wage. But that increase has been less than the amount that the wages are raised every single time they have raised the minimum wage. They have always netted more buying power for the lower and middle classes. 

Also, historically raising the minimum wage has never prompted massive job cuts as opponents always claim it will. The employers are already operating at minimum number of employees if they are doing their jobs correctly, and the increased buying power of the lower class has statistically shown an increase in net gains for companies, not a loss. The rich when they get money lock it away in the stock market or long term investments, the poor actively spend it in the economy to buy food and goods.