slartabartfast
I was frankly flabbergasted when I saw a sign outside a JiffyLube saying that they were hiring and inviting prospective employees to submit a curriculum vitae. A CV from a guy who is going to change oil all day? No one ever asked me for a CV, or even a high school diploma for my first dozen jobs. 

7/11 and service stations that need doofuses to sit and take money for people getting gas are both requesting resumes now (the American equivalent to a CV).
 
Go figure!

Again, I would heartily encourage anyone who thinks that raising the minimum wage is (or has ever been) overtly inflationary to simply do the due diligence to actually look for and provide the evidence. It simply is not there. While it may cause some temporary upward price pressure on certain businesses in the short term (again...the operative word here is "may") in the long term its effects are almost always minor and not inflationary.

I honestly couldn't care less from an argumentative standpoint whether it does or doesn't. I'm just relating what I found without much trouble from multiple unbiased sources. Sorry.

I don't see how wage increases can't cause either some increase in prices and/or other negative effects.Let's imagine a hypothetical situation of a business which pays its workers $10/hr. Let's also say that of the revenue they take from the sale of their product, 50% pays the wages, 10% is taken as profit and the rest is spent on the other costs of doing business. Let's now imagine they are forced to increase their hourly rate to $15/hr, an increase of 50% in their payroll (not including things like payroll taxes). Well that sort of increase is not going to be covered by profits is it? Even the company takes a 50% cut in profits, it's still not going to cover it. And remember that some of those profits are reinvested, which means that taking it out of profits would mean less reinvestment in the company and fewer jobs created in future. So where does the money come from? Well I guess they could either increase their prices to create more revenue to play with (although a price increase may deter come customers from purchasing), or they could lay workers off and make the remaining employees work harder, or they could cut costs in other areas. That last possibility is interesting - it could entail either cutting corners in the manufacture of their product (e.g. inferior materials) or spending less on advertising or whatever. There is then the possibility that the businesses which supply them with materials or do their advertising will take a hit. 
 
I think the trouble with the way most people think about economics is that they tend to focus on a limited range of short term, immediate effects. A thorough understanding of economic policy should include both short term and long term effects, as well as a consideration of how those effects propagate through the whole economy, not just the immediate recipients of the policy. Politicians rarely care about the long term effects - their sphere of concern pretty much ends at the point of the next election. And very few people think about the "what might have been" effect of economic policy, because that involves things they can't see. For instance, if you forcibly redistribute money from one place to another (e.g. in the form of minimum wage increases) then you have to think about what that money would have otherwise been spent on and whether those "other things" would have been more beneficial to the economy. When you divert money from capital spending to consumer spending, for example, you're potentially decreasing the potential for economic growth. And ultimately you're making less money available to produce goods and services, while putting more dollars in the hands of consumers. More dollars chasing fewer goods! In other words, an increase in prices (economics 101). 
 
I know if I were forced to increase the % of revenue that I pay out in wages, I would be left with no choice but to increase prices. You could throw as many "unbiased studies" at me as you like, it wouldn't change that reality. 

Actually, there's far more negative impacts if the minimum wage is increased to $15/hour.  Although what Sharke has pointed out above is the initial issue, many small business owners currently are not making 10% profit and this move will undoubtedly sink their businesses.  Others will have to let people go and/or dramatically raise the prices on their products to cover the increase.  $8 Big Macs anyone?
 
But, here's the bigger ripple effect that is not being seen yet:  Joe currently makes 20% more than the minimum wage because [insert any reason here, seniority, tougher job, supervisory position, etc.] when, suddenly, John, a new-hire with no experience, is now making a lot more (Oregon and Washington already have some of the highest minimum wages at $9.75 and $9.47 - the highest is in D.C. at $11.50/hour while most are at $7.25).  For the Pacific Northwest, current minimum wage earners would immediately get more than a 50% raise (without doing anything more or better).  Obviously, at the very least, everyone who used to be making more than the minimum, but less than $15/hour will also have to be bumped up to the new minimum, however every one those people will now be screaming for an increase from there relative to where they were before (and why shouldn't they?).  Needless to say, now some of those employees will now be making more than those in tougher positions or even their own managers so now THAT class of employee will demand a raise as well. And up the chain it goes.
 
It's only a very naive socialist view that the "extra" profits from so-called greedy business owners will now be spread out all the way to the lowest paid employee.  The reality is that the truly greedy ones will never distribute what they consider to be "their" profits and will simply raise their prices to cover the new expenses (maybe my guess was low, $11 Big Macs anyone?).  More and more businesses are already cutting employee hours so they don't need to provide benefits and this will only get worse.  Ok, so the minimum wagers now make a LOT more (which, frankly, they don't deserve - read Sharke's other topic to see what the typical low-level employee will provide for that money), but they will now have to cover things they might not have had to before like medical, dental, any days off (which are now without pay), etc.
 
Anyone who thinks now that these lowest wage earners will now have more money to spend to make their lives better will find that they really don't after everything that they have to buy now costs more.
 
What about retirees?  They've already made whatever they could in hopes it would last for the rest of their lives.  Huge increases in the cost of living may mean they run out of money long before it's their time to pass.
 
There's (at least) one more impact as well.  Anyone NOT working who's been barely scraping by will now be truly screwed since anything they've been making is not affected by the minimum wage increase so they now have far less money relative to what they need to get.  Even those getting some form of government assistance will feel this since you can bet that all of them won't be getting a 50% increase in their benefits!

Well,  maybe the confusion is between micro effects and macro effects.  I think what yerolpal was saying is that it doesn't necessarily contribute to the nationwide inflation rate.  The CPI doesn't include volatile prices  which is sort of bogus anyways;  those *volatile* prices like gas and food can stay at high or low levels for a long time.
 
We live in a mixed economy...there's elements of socialism as well as free enterprise.  The argument for or against utopian, pure systems is moot really.

eph221
But the reason I mention this is that, perhaps the reason it's getting harder to find decent workers is symptom of full employment (5% unemployment and lower).  

Full employment??!?  I don't know (haven't looked yet) where these ridiculous unemployment numbers come from, but I can only guess it's based on the number of people getting unemployment benefits.  The actual unemployment percentage (those that could be working but are not) is MUCH higher (over 40% is my guess).  The 5% joke of a number doesn't include ANY of the people (like myself) who didn't qualify for unemployment, anyone who has given up on finding work, or all of those whose unemployment benefits have already run out.  Heck, I just read that if you mow someones lawn and made $20 during a week that you're also not considered unemployed!  So exclude anyone working part time too.  Check this out:
 

Gallup defines a good job as 30+ hours per week for an organization that provides a regular paycheck. Right now, the U.S. is delivering at a staggeringly low rate of 44%, which is the number of full-time jobs as a percent of the adult population, 18 years and older.

 
That 5% number seems to indicate only one person out of 20 is unemployed.  So how many people do YOU know of?  Personally, I know of a lot and many of us used to have really decent jobs.  Several of my friends (an IT Director, a partner at Accenture, a programming manager, some programmers, etc.) were wiped out financially during the same time I was (2008-9).  I know because we all contacted each other trying to find work.  Of my immediate friends (including my roommate), it's about one in three.  The fact that about half of the population (It was at 49.2% in 2011 and rising) gets some form of government benefits should be a big clue that something is seriously messed up!  

Craig, you sound bitter.  That's good for a poet. :D
 
The unemployment rate is based on two statistics:  the CPS and the number of those collecting unemployment benefits.

Pedro's the poet.  I'm a lyricist, there's a difference!  
 
(And, yes, I AM bitter!  I've been trying to get work just to pay basic bills since June.  I'm considered too old at 52 or over-qualified for any low-level position and, apparently, I don't have enough "current experience" to get back into the IT world - even though I managed to run my own IT Consulting business for several years.  That's stopping due to a lack of new clients and a few mainstays that can't afford things right now.)

I wrote the music to a song today called *the sound of truth*.  Does that stir any lyrical ideas?

It reminds me of that video someone posted that demonstrates "truth" as a very individual point of view.