On March 31 2016, California legislators approved Senate Bill 3 (SB3), a piece of legislation written in cooperation with labor unions that will raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour statewide by January 1st, 2022. With the signing of this legislation by Governor Jerry Brown despite staunch opposition from Republicans and business leaders, minimum wage increases are on the way.

Democrats, labor unions and misguided workers have been celebrating the passage of SB3 since it was signed during a morning ceremony on April 4 at the Ronald Reagan State Building in downtown Los Angeles.

During this ceremony, however, Governor Brown admitted something about minimum wages that should worry even the fiercest supporter: Despite the fact that “Morally and socially and politically, they make every sense because it binds the community together," Brown admitted that "Economically, minimum wages may not make sense.”

Indeed, they may not make sense. The sheer size of the minimum wage increase approved by the California government sets up an economic experiment of a magnitude the country has never seen before. Gone are the days of moderate increases based on pragmatic economic analysis, as the legislature becomes more and more open to radical economic ideas framed as moral issues rather than economic ones.

So let’s stick to the facts.

There are four major reasons that you need to be concerned about this minimum wage increase, each which stands on its own merit.

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It will result in job loss

Ever since the minimum wage was instituted in 1938, its creation and expansion has consistently resulted in job loss. When it first went into place, the first 25-cent minimum wage in 1938 resulted in significant job losses. Furthermore, recent minimum wage increases imposed in the United States and its territories have been so economically harmful that President Obama was forced to sign a bill postponing them.

But that’s not all - in 2006, a review of more than 100 minimum wage studies by researchers David Neumark and William Wascher found that about two-thirds of all studies measuring the impact of minimum wage increases found negative employment effects, and in 2010, Joseph Sabia and Richard Burkhauser estimated that “nearly 1.3 million jobs will be lost if the federal minimum wage is increased to $9.50 per hour.”

The evidence presented points to a very clear conclusion: Minimum wage increases, especially massive increases such as the one signed into law by Governor Brown, result in the loss of jobs.

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It hurts the very people it aims to help

Of those adversely affected by minimum wage increases, low skill, younger and immigrant workers (the people minimum wage laws are designed to help) are the most commonly affected. This is not a political talking point - academic studies agree that minimum wages reduce employment among low-skilled workers.

A 2012 analysis of the New York State minimum wage increase from $5.15 to $6.75 per hour found a “20.2 to 21.8 percent reduction in the employment of younger less-educated individuals,” and a 2010 analysis by Michael J. Hicks found: “the latest round of minimum wage increases” account “for roughly 550,000 fewer part-time jobs,” including “roughly 310,000 fewer teenagers working part-time.”

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It is a poor way to reduce poverty

But these costs are warranted, right? At the very least, it will help reduce poverty!

Wrong.

In fact, the last time the federal minimum wage was increased, only 15 percent of the workers who were expected to gain from it lived in poor households. Since 1995, eight studies have examined the income and poverty effects of minimum wage increases, and seven of them have found that past minimum wage hikes had no effect on poverty. This lack of effect on poverty holds true for state minimum wages a well. One academic study found that both state and federal minimum wage increases between 2003 and 2007 had no effect on state poverty rates.

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It will drive up costs

The costs of minimum wage increases must be paid by someone, and it is naive to believe that employers will just shoulder the increased costs. Rather, reports show evidence that, for instance, a 10 percent increase in the U.S. minimum wage is likely to raise food prices by up to 4 percent. Of all industries, fewer are more drastically affected than restaurants. A 2007 study from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago found that increases in minimum wage have a direct causal relationship to the price of goods and services at restaurants.

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Now, Governor Brown is correct. While it may not make any economic sense to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, it certainly makes political sense, considering the fact that on the very same day that this legislation was passed, five prominent Democrats - each instrumental in the passage of this legislation - received massive campaign checks from the labor unions involved in the process.

But let's not kid ourselves. The labor unions don't really support the American working class. If they did, and had any real beliefs in this minimum wage legislation, they wouldn't be asking for an exemption to the law they just got passed.