History of minimum wage, it begun in 193 by F. D. Roosevelt with the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. It primarily banned oppressive child labor and set the minimum hourly wage at 25 cents, and the maximum workweek at 44 hours. This was created during a time of having no limits for the amount an employer can force and employee to work, or how much they can pay them.
Now for the reasons, the market should set the minimum wage, and that should be based off of supply and demand. Supply and Demand is Economics 101, if there is a surplus of workers who can easily replace you that job would be classified as “unskilled labor”. If someone off the street can walk in and learn your job in minimal time, then the job is more than likely minimum wage. Example, there are “few” people who can complete the rigorous coursework required to become engineers, lawyers, and doctors hence the salary of those 3 fields. $15 an hour is around $30k per year before taxes, that would put a fast food worker in the same field as an entry level teacher, accountant, and a paramedic just to know a few professions, now tell me how does a guy who works fast food should earn the same? They shouldn’t. This push for a higher minimum wage has made some companies look into automating some of the jobs that are typically filled by unskilled labor. I have personally experience this on a recent trip to New York when I made my order on an iPad, for the companies this makes perfect sense. Make a one-time investment of $4-600 for an iPad and that is easily recovered in one week of not having to pay an employee wages and everything else that comes along with a human.
I understand the desire to be paid more but usually pay is a function of skill level. My advice would be to get into a profession that pays more, but that is easily said that done; I understand this. Finally, I do not think the workers will get their requested due to technology being able to replace some of the jobs and the workers might lose their job and the remaining workers will be required to work much harder.