&gt;Imagine the minimum wage were doubled, do you think McDonald&#x27;s would respond by laying off half their staff?<p>No, but a person will definitely think twice before starting a new McDonald&#x27;s franchise. A small restaurant owner who had been eyeing a second location will think twice about opening up another restaurant.<p>The incentives will also shift towards higher automation (not necessarily a good or bad thing in and of itself) of tasks as much as possible instead of hiring humans.<p>Companies don&#x27;t work like this: &quot;We have X amount of work to do, no matter what it costs&quot;. It&#x27;s more along the lines of whether a project is a net positive (say through a net present value analysis) and if it isn&#x27;t, then the whole project is scrapped.