Minimum wage

The minimum wages is in the news again. There are about 500,000 who earn less than the minimum wage and many of those are restaurant employees who receive TIPS. Polls indicate that these people would earn less if they had to trade their TIPS for $15 per hour wage. Most of them feel the best thing would be to raise their wage from the current $2.13 to $5 and keep their TIPS. Would customers be willing to pay more if the increase went to wages? A poor mans Big Mac cost $1.80. Most fast food places have labor cost at about one third so $.60 of the cost goes to labor. If you doubled the labor cost the price would rise by 60 cents or $2.40. Add another 20 cents for the cost of increased benefits and you would pay $2.60 for a hamburger that now cost $1.80. If the employees currently earn the minimum wage of $7.25 this would double their salary to $14.50. Would the average customer be willing to pay an extra 80 cents for a burger if they knew the money would double the salaries.