Okay, I'll play.

A minimum wage is a means of monetary redistribution built into payroll.

Assumes facts not in evidence. Suppose Bob, Carol, Ted and Alice all work for Google. They all make eleventy seven gajillion dollars a year. The minimum wage is eleven dollars a year. Neither Bob, nor Carol, nor Ted nor Alice are experiencing wealth distribution.

Let's suppose instead that Larry, Moe and Curly all pick lettuce for Farmer Bob (no relation). They all make eleven cents a year. Suppose the minimum wage is eleven dollars a year. Oh, ho! You cry. Now we're redistributing money. No, not really. Because Bob is gonna sell the farm or hire robots before he pays that much extra. And you know what? Bob can get a bunch of undocumented workers to replace Larry, Moe and Curly.

A minimum wage has nothing to do with "monetary redistribution" and everything to do with lifestyle protectionism. The argument against minimum wage is that if people want a job that badly, they ought to be allowed to work for it. The argument for minimum wage is "How else do you intend to keep out the wetbacks?"

Seriously.

The first time a federal minimum wage was passed and not immediately abolished by the Supreme Court, it was 25 cents an hour - $4.10 in 2012 dollars. That's not enough to keep anybody in their shanty and socks... but it's enough to drive the goddamn Mexicans back across the border where they can't Terk our Jerbs. Two years later they criminalized El Marijuana. It was the other shoe of The New Deal - plenty of make-work, but only for white folks.

So that out of the way, let's not pretend that a minimum wage is a living wage, which is what the socialists and communists and neoutopians and myself are really interested in talking about. Minimum wage in California is $8 an hour. A living wage in Los Angeles is $11.37 and that's without kids. Minimum wage plus a baby = food stamps, no two ways about it.

So let's not look at it from a perspective of money and buckets. The question at hand is who you wish to remunerate well enough to establish themselves within your community. For places that pay minimum wage, the answer is "nobody." This is not an unfortunate consequence of capitalism, this is a conscious choice by predatory corporations. It doesn't have to work that way.

I know two people who work at Costco. One of them is out on the floor, the other one does advertising.

Both of them have been there more than fifteen years. Compare and contrast with Amazon's digital Okies.