"First off no business HAS to provide anything to its employees. It is a benefit of employment if a business so choses to."

True statement, however, daily hugs and sing-a-longs don't attract the workforce you're going to need to make your business happen. You have to be competitive against the other businesses trying to attract your future employees. Thus, does compensation factor in here. Both in wages and benefits.

With few exceptions, ( part-time, misc odd jobs, etc ) I would like to see all -full time- jobs provide compensation well beyond the poverty level. Pipe dream I know, but it would be nice to see folks carve out a living without having to hold three jobs to do so.

Would it make the end products more expensive ? Probably. Corporations aren't going to cut into their profits, so they'll just pass the costs along to us. Unfortunately, most of us wouldn't pay $20 for a combo meal at one of these places so the whole business would eventually implode. A catch-22.

We're addicted to cheap goods. Unfortunately, that means cheap labor as you can only cut so many corners. Thus my pipe-dream statement above.

In this case, you can't have your cake and eat it too. If we bump up the minimum wage to one that gets folks out of poverty, we run the risk of destroying the idea completely as folks abandon the product due to its rising cost.