There was no set minimum wage and companies at the time were against increasing it, until Ford set the precedence and the rest followed suit. He was the trend setter.
When you increase minimum wage, there is a sliver of the market that gets shut down: the set of jobs that made sense between the old minimum and the new minimum
Makes sense but…
Those are jobs that people were happy to work, but which they aren’t allowed to any longer. Those people are now out of a job.
Yes, I’m sure people were sad to see their old workplaces shut down who provide poor pay and toxic work environment, instead of moving to better alternatives!