I agree with all this. My additional observation though is that in a tight labour market there aren't enough workers for all the jobs. The thing we should want to happen is that the lowest paid jobs don't get filled, and get replaced by automation. That means that the average job now pays more. That's how labour productivity improves and the country gets richer. It's not a problem in a situation where there's more work than there are workers, as opposed to when it's forced on business through raises in the minimum wage (which mean jobs evaporating even though there aren't enough jobs).Agree.
I work in Workforce Mgt at a large corporation and yes, the same principals of a small business apply for a Fortune 10 company. We have a duty and mandate to shareholders to hit our earnings targets for the Street. When labor makes a paradigm shift in cost, basic math is needed to determine whether a capital investment in technology like automation is more predictable and cheaper over the next X years than paying for and dealing with the associated challenges of the human labor force. Sucks but there is no free lunch and that higher wage has downstream impacts. Unless people want to pay $17 for a "value meal" automation is there to stay.
The problem inside that of course is if some people simply can't do more than $14 of work in an hour. If there are people in the population who aren't employable at the new pay rates, then the businesses that need workers won't hire them, even though they're desperate. I guess if all the jobs that are automatable got automated, and this job is important to whatever overall process they're running, then they'll hire a person for it or go out of business.
And also, like always, pay rises lead to inflation, and that has consequences too.
My point is that I'm a strong believer in markets. When people want to raise the minimum wage I would usually say "that's a bad idea, if that person had enough skills to get paid more the market would already pay them more." And people think I'm naive and that we need government intervention. Now that the market's doing what I said, I can hardly say "that's a problem, I don't want people to get paid more." The market is doing exactly what it's supposed to do when there's a shortage. And as the price of labour goes up, some people who weren't working start thinking "hey, that job's paid pretty well", and they come out of retirement, or come off welfare or whatever they do.