I think everyone agrees that no one wants to give money to the wealthy. But if you mandate that every employee pay their employees at least "X" amount, you're driving costs up as well as wage, and it's the ccheaper goods that her the biggest hike, since they're (were) the cheapest to produce. I'm all for lowering education costs and making it much, much more accessible to low income individuals, but paying a 15 year old at McDonald's what an emt makes in my hometown doesn't help the workforce, it minimizes incentives to become educated and kills the desire to advance from unskilled to skilled labor.