Raise the minimum wage.

First off I would like to say that I never said that the farmer would raise the prices of other produce. I said they would raise prices for all their other customers. Meaning when they raise the price of beef for McDonald's they will raise it for the grocery store they sell it to. The grocccery store will then raise it's price on beef. The other produce listed was the other indigents found in a burger, which would obviously raise (as you said, it makes sense) in price. And, OK, McDonalds may get it's food from factories but the factories don't make the beef itself. Somewhere down the line there has to be a farmer. So I believe my agrument about these price raises (aka inflation) still stands. As for the $1.5 million surplus, this won't help. Franchises manage their own money and do not receive assistance from McDonald's corporate. (1) None of that $1.5 million can help in this scenario.Now for a point by point refutation.1) This is an impressive number... until you realize the vast majority of these people are not on the minimum wage. Only about 1.5 million people in the US made the minimum wage last year. (2) I believe this argument by Pro is irrelevant and should not be here.2) The article you as a source for this does not explain how they got this info. They very likely may have miscalculated or forgot certain factors. Another way to think about it is this: if what you said it true, why don't we see the impact? Sure there are millions of poor people but a $14/hr difference would cause a much larger impact than we see. As I said above only 1.5 million people made minimum wage last year. That seems like a lot until you realize the US has over 300 million people.3) " It is a logical assumption that this wealth inequality produces crime..." There is absolutely no proof for this. When was the last time you heard about somebody saying "I committed that crime because I'm on minimum wage and poor." Which brings up something interesting. It appears you are assuming people on minimum wage are poor. This is simply not true. The ones that are are the ones that didn't make good financial decisions. "I can't raise a family off minimum wage". That's not what minimum wage is for. It's a launching pad for individuals. The poor people on minimum wage are the ones who did not realize the added expenses from their decisions. Assuming crime by the poor is a result of the minimum wage is wrong. As stated above 1.5 million (a small percentage of the poor population) makes minimum wage.4) Why do women make minimum wage? Because they choose to. In a family, the father brings in most of the money. If the mother works at all it's not a lot because she wants to spend time with her kids. So they are not necessarily in an unfair situation. This in addition to the the still possible negative effects of raising the minimum wage, means we should not raise the minimum wage.5) Welfare is a messed up system. Many people of welfare don't even work. And as stated above the poor people on minimum wage are in that mess because of their own bad decisions. So these billions of dollars are mostly going to lazy people, or people who thought they could take on several expenses while still on minimum wage. Sources:(1) http://franchises.about.com... (2) http://www.bls.gov...;