The person earning the federal minimum wage of $7.25 isn't going out to eat at restaurants. They're not taking piano lessons. They're not going to the gym or the yoga studio. They're not sending mom flowers on Mother's day. What good is this person in the economy? If you raise it to $15 an hour, they're doing all of those things. And all of a sudden, not just business thrives, but small business thrives.
The fundamental law of capitalism is: when workers have more money, businesses have more customers, and need more workers. The idea that high wages equals low employment, it's absurd.
Fast food workers are all the governor has power to enact. Your state legislature is held hostage by the same nitwits that hold hostage the federal [government]. People who have confused suffocating collectivism, which is bad, for a necessity to solve collective action problems, which is what all human endeavor is based on.
If you care about real change, deep structural change, that involves politics, and all politics is friction. It takes leadership, and the willingness to create that friction, that leads to social change.