It's nice to see every now and then people willing to take the time and break informational bubble enough to read and comment on something they obviously disagree with. Are you up for a serious answer?

" you ignore the impact to small businesses of this country, that are the economic engine of this economy" - yes, the SMBs are the engine but nobody ignores the impact of a mandatory minimum wage. Obviously you're referring to the operational costs involved with paying a higher wage. But why don't you see the opportunity? Nobody ignores the effects of a wage hike but everyone focuses on the positives. More people with more money to spend means a larger customer base. For an SMB it means more income. This is an immediate effect for SMBs in retail and consumer goods (though for SMBs in services it may take a while to cash in the positives).

It means a larger tax base for federal and state to finance stuff like better healthcare, which in the long run it means healthier people and less waste due to lost working time over sickness. It means more productive people (yeah, if you complain about a minimal wage, you're not paying your employees a living wage because you can't afford it - not because they don't deserve it), more motivated.

It also means more people with disposable incomes, who might even have a chance to save and invest, over time, in more businesses, become educated and maybe run a business of their own.

In turn this means a larger customer base for service oriented SMBs and the cycle carries on from there.

I honestly see no downsides, just a really lot of positives. Some immediate and some that might take a while to manifest on the expected scale.

By the way, another reason for SMBs to embrace a minimal wage is exactly due to big corporations. Amazon might shake it off (as a cost) but one reason people purchase at Amazon is due to low prices. Amazon can do that due to volume (and other things), sure but a wage hike would enable people to not have to buy Amazon and instead afford other, better things.