None of that negates the fact that it's a market manipulation that hurts the bottom line workers more than it helps them. Esp people of color.
Discussion
In what way does it hurt them? I've heard the claim before, but I've never once heard it articulated into something specific, nor have I seen it paired with defensible evidence.
It artificially raises the cost of employment without adding any value to the productivity. In every case, it results in hiring less workers. That's evidenced in the unemployment rates, going back at least as far as the 1960s for example, where it went from 14% to 24% among white teens and up over 30% among black teens.
It's legal discrimination against people that are perceived as being low skilled labor. There's no substance to it as a fundamental policy. It's a bandaid on a hemorrhage.
It looks good on paper. Doesn't perform well in practice.
We need to be reducing barriers for minimum wage earners and employers. Not just telling them to deal with it.
The legal discrimination is the only real claim here. The rest is effectively meaningless, making bold but extremely vague claims that can't really be meaningfully evaluated and responded to.
And as for that discrimination, that's an... Unexpected claim. I suppose you could consider it a sort of positive discrimination in the sense that you're selectively putting upward pressure on their wages in particular.
Given it applies to ALL workers, however, it doesn't seem accurate. Especially considering how much some groups want to raise minimum wage. Some want to increase it beyond what some SKILLED labor makes, which means some skilled labor would get a federally mandated raise, which really hurts claims of discrimination based on level of skilled labor.
I would consider it much more of a general labor right. ALL workers who labor for someone else's profits are, according to minimum wage laws, entitled to some minimum level of wages.
Frankly, if your business cannot afford to pay its workers enough to reasonably survive, you're running a failed business. Your profits are being subsidized by your workers' support network, whether that be other laborers or some sort of tax funded social service. Every worker on food stamps is a corporate subsidy from your taxes. Every worker who needs a roommate to afford rent has their roommate helping contribute to business profits. Every 20+ unable to move out and living with their parents still has those parents contributing to corporate profits. Everyone who helps prop up a full time worker so they can survive in spite of their wages is covering the cost of business for them because they're the ones ensuring those workers can survive and return to work again. Without them, workers end up hungry and/or on the streets until they can't afford to work or become too sick or simply starve.
A minimum wage acknowledges this reality and puts the onus back on the employer. The employer wants labor. The employer needs a healthy, capable worker. Workers have basic needs that must be met economically. Why should business reap all the benefits and outsource as many of the expenses as possible? Why are we as a society responsible for picking up their shortcomings and seeing to the needs of their workers for them? Why do their profits mean more than put basic necessities? Just because their name is on the paperwork while our blood, sweat, and tears are on the tools and the products?
Having dug into these claims some and checked out some of the research, it seems the waters are pretty muddy. I found plenty to support my view, and I think the balance lies in my favor, but I don't think I'll have a meaningful chance of convincing you of that by citing individual papers. I could collect a bunch of papers to cite, but you'd find your own so you could counter with some other papers, we could maybe go back and forth over quality of them, and ultimately, neither of us would make a convincing argument for the other that way.
So I'm going to approach this a slightly different way. Let's consider which side is more likely to experience bias. It's well established at this point that research funded by a group with goals has a strong tendency to agree with those goals, even when the facts don't actually align with those goals. That is, research funded by biased groups produces biased results. They don't pay for research that doesn't support them, and if they do, they bury the results the best they can.
With that in mind, let's consider what groups could conceivably be clouding the issue with faulty, biased research. Let's look at the side opposing minimum wage first. This is a pretty obvious one. Every employer is against it because it can even lead to growth in wages well above the minimum, and they want to protect their profits. Every business is in favor of denying an increase. It's in the best interest of every rich family, every corporate think tank, basically everyone with an excessive amount of wealth. Hell, to an extent, even government funded research is suspect simply because the government consistently acts in the best interest of business when forced to choose between them and the people.
Now, contrast that with groups in favor of increasing minimum wage. I don't see near the capacity to influence research here. The primary group in favor of this is the working class, and even then, primarily the poorest among them. They're unlikely to form any sort of lobbying group or think tank or research institute because they simply can't afford it. Unions may have some incentive, but they've been utterly thrashed in recent decades, so they're not really potent enough by my estimate. I can't think of anything else, really, but I'd legitimately love to hear other options if you can suggest some.
From this perspective, it seems far, far, FAR more likely that dishonest, biased, or otherwise faulty research would favor denying an increase. Almost all moneyed interests favor keeping wages low. Given that, I think it's MUCH more likely that the truth leans in favor of a reasonable minimum wage. I understand that there may still be imperfections and problems to address, but on the whole, I think balance lies in favor of maintaining and increasing minimum wage.