Dear Fellow Plutocrats, the pitchforks are coming.

[Black Aeronaut]

ECSNorway wrote:

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Increasing minimum wage means cost of doing business increases, which means that unless sales increase, prices increase.

Prices for some businesses -cannot- increase, either because they are forcibly set by distributors (as in the book market) or other forces prevent it (such as competition with larger chains that can afford the losses).

One thing that would really help a lot of low-income workers and would actually make sense would be to stop exempting tipped workers from existing minimum-wage laws.

Unfortunately, this is more of a product of changing times than anything else.  Hundreds of book stores across the country have shuttered their doors because of competition from Amazon alone.  And this isn't really the fault of politicians trying to enact positive change. Like you said, some businesses can't change the price of their products because those prices are set by the distributors.  And it will only be when the last of the brick and mortar stores close up shop will these distributors realize what they've done.  Much like when MP3s became popular and RIAA's resistance to change all but eliminated the brick-and-mortar music stores.  Now, only specialty shops dealing in second-hand vinyl and the like remain.  So the same shall happen with books - soon, only second-hand book stores will remain.