While there is definitely merit to the thought that some prices will increase as wages increase, your analogy isn’t very good. It assumes that the only expense that the fast food place has is labor cost, which isn’t true. Once you account for the cost of the food itself, the cost of maintenance, rent, etc, then the amount that prices would need to be increased isn’t as high as you’re saying.

Assume the hourly wage for Order Takers is $7.50. Hourly Cost at the Fast Food places is about $21.50 to $37.50. At Royal Farms or WAWA it’s $0.0.

Now raise minimum wage to $10 per hour. That increases the Fast Food hourly order cost to $30 to $50.

Both need to be increased for benefits, meager as they probably are.

Translated to Hamburgers, at $1.50 for a Cheese Burger, the Hourly cost is from 14 Cheese Burgers to 25 Cheese Burgers. If the minimum wage is raised to $10, the order taker cost in Cheese Burgers is from 15 to 33.

If the Fast Food folks don’t raise their prices, then where does the extra money come from? How about reconfiguring the order taking process to eliminate Order Takers?

So, where’s the net benefit to raising the minumum wage? In that regard, the Consumer is protected but the cost is increased unemployment. Improvement? I think not.