Federal min wage: 7.25 (currently, should be higher).
Your stated min wage: fill in the blank
I think an interesting way to get conservatives to support increasing the federal minimum wage would be to have it be an either or scenario. They always use their small business hardware store example. So you say “if your company does business in more than one state (interstate commerce?) you must pay the federal minimum wage to all employees (20 an hour)”. If your company only exists in one state you have to pay the state minimum wage, which you can set as 15 an hour to decrease the barrier to entry for small businesses. This would basically create tiers of jobs, working for your local coffee shop, hardware store etc is the entry level job for high schoolers, working for the chain restaurant big company becomes the better job, force them to pass along those economies of scale to their employees. Levels the playing field a smidge, big companies get economies of scale, small businesses get a discount on labor. To get around this companies may break up into Fast food company MA, RI, VT etc. But wouldn’t this be a form of trust busting? They would have to create all new hierarchies and networks within each of these organizations to be considered independent organizations. Collusion may be a risk but there is nothing stopping the new CEO of FastFood Inc MA from trying to expand into a neighboring state and outcompete the other ones. Still sounds like a win to me. Then beyond that if states can set minimum wages, why can’t counties, cities and towns. If you do business only in our county or town you can pay this. Probably a race to the bottom in Red states but in blue states I could see it be successful in both promoting small business and regulating big business.
Beyond that there should be min wages based on degrees and certifications. If you level up in Pokémon you get access to new moves. The grind is rewarded. If you complete A then you get B. Our society’s incentives should work the same.
Just as an example
Associates degree:20 an hour
Bachelors: 40 an hour
Masters: 65 an hour
PHD 100 an hour
This would make companies reevaluate if their entry level position actually requires a 4 year degree and in the long term combat degree inflation (deflation?).
Other certifications in the trades, computer science etc would be worth things as well.
TIPs certification, forklift certification, commercial drivers liscense provided you use those skills in your job should be +2 or +3 an hour.
I’m sure someone could do a cost and time (don’t forget opportunity cost) analysis on college and certifications and determine how much each should be worth to an employer or maybe more accurately how much we invested in those skills and what we should be charging for them.