There are a number of issues here and it is very complex. One thing mentioned earlier I think doesn't get mentioned enough. Wages are only a part of how much an employee costs a business. Where I used to work, when hiring decisions were made, the total employee cost was budgeted at roughly 2x the salary (or wages) of the position. You also need to incorporate benefits into an employee's total compensation package. My former employer used to offer no premiums on their health insurance for employees. At that time, hardly anyone left the company. Changes in health care law changed a number of those dynamics, so now, premiums are about what everyone else pays, however, salaries were increased. Now, the company has a much harder time keeping employees.
Also, I have other family members that run a small business. It is hard for them to grow, because if they get to a certain amount of employees, then they would be required under the law to provide greatly increased benefits. To them it is a catch-22, because if they expand, then their costs would go up to a degree to which they would be then forced in turn to reduce the workforce, so their solution is to stay put where they are at. Meanwhile, large companies (some in the same industry) can absorb those benefit increases due to their economies of scale. An unintended by-product of that legislation, but a very real one. Just an example of how "well-meaning" legislation can sometimes have unintended effects.
I tend to side on the free-market side of things, but I think that the government itself, through legislation that favors certain industries, causes inequalities in the market and it doesn't function efficiently (aka "Crony Capitalism"). So, then you get the after effects of this and what you hear from people is to create more government "solutions" to fix the problems that the last government "solution" created. In effect, it limits competition, and what we really want is healthy competition.
A number of posters here have stated that CM's can't move because they may not have certain skill sets, but that is not necessarily true. When Universal opened in Orlando, it hired a number of former Disney employees and paid them better (and by "paid", I mean their whole compensation package, not just "wages"). That forces Disney into a decision. Pay more to keep employees, or continue to go how they were and continue to lose some of their better employees. That competition also benefits consumers as well as the two continue to build new attractions, in part, to try to entice the tourist dollar to visit their location as opposed to their competitor. In this sense, both consumers and employees are scarce resources (not infinite), so the demand should drive what the market should bear not only in revenue, but also in terms of compensation.
However, the whole problem with all of this is that nothing happens in a vacuum, so if you change the dynamics one place, you can't assume that everything else will remain the same. One problem I have with some of the wage arguments is the argument that these large companies may be able to pay more, so they should. The problem with that is that if you then enforce, say a large minimum wage increase, Disney or Universal may indeed be able to absorb those increases, however, the Small Business owner of a hotel or restaurant out on 192 who is operating on extremely thin margins (everyone always wants to discuss revenue that companies make, but no one ever wants to discuss costs it seems...) will be disproportionately impacted by the increased costs that they will now incur. So, they are left with a choice: A) increase the cost to customers to cover the increased costs that they incur (inflation) or B) decrease the workforce and hope to increase productivity maintaining a similar cost structure. If most small businesses choose option A, then costs overall increase and the by-product of that is that the now-increased wages that the workers that have the increase find that their spending power is decreased and the cycle starts all over again.
I was in Seattle last year and went into a Subway (the one by the Hilton). They wanted $10 for a footlong Ham and Cheese sub. Here in Alabama, that same sub is $4.99. I got into a discussion with someone there who was talking about how great it was that the guy behind the counter was now making $15/hour. I told them that in Alabama, that same guy would only make $7.50-$9.00/hour and they seemed aghast. However, that person is paying half for what the sub is, so the buying power, in a sense, was the same, if not a little better. Yes, people here don't maybe make as much money as many other areas of the US, but it sure is a lot cheaper to live here.
