If there’s one subject that seems nearly impossible to debate with liberals it’s economics, particularly as it relates to the minimum wage, a pet cause they’ve been fighting over for years now.

To those who are economically illiterate — meaning just about every leftist in the country — the only way to help the poor is either through massive welfare programs or raising the minimum wage to obscene amounts for work that could technically be done by machines.

Like taking orders at McDonald’s.

No matter how hard you try to tell them that such measures would place higher financial burdens on small businesses and prevent them from being able to expand and create more jobs, they just stick their fingers in their ears like a petulant child and ignore you.

Well, perhaps they’ll listen after seeing what’s happening in Massachusetts, as that state now has the highest minimum wage in the country.

TheBlaze is reporting, On Jan. 1, Massachusetts’ minimum wage rose from $10 per hour to $11 per hour — that’s up $3 per hour from as recently as January 2014, the Boston Globe reported.

The Bay State was among 19 states that voted in November to give minimum wage workers a raise, as ABC News noted. Oregon, Washington, D.C., and Maryland are all expected to raise the minimum wage later this year.

The Globe spoke with one Massachusetts business owner who has cut her staff from 50 to 20 in the past two years alone, telling the newspaper she just couldn’t afford to pay all those workers the ever-rising, state-mandated amount.

Marc Wallerce, another Massachusetts business owner, said his payroll has gone up nearly $100,000 in the past three years, with most of the extra money going to teenagers he employs, since most of his older workers already earn above minimum wage. Unlike the first business owner the Globe spoke to, Wallerce hasn’t cut any jobs, but his own take-home pay is less than it used to be.

To add insult to injury, Wallerce is mandated by Massachusetts to pay his employees time and a half on holidays and Sundays. To date, only Massachusetts and Rhode Island force businesses to pay workers extra on those days.

You would think this topic is rocket science or something, but truly it’s simple as apple pie.

Business owners need money — we use the dirty word “profits” — in order to pay their bills, their employees, and expand the company and create jobs. Creating jobs is good because it means more people are put to work, providing for themselves, instead of relying on the government.

However, if you add more costs to running the business, like higher taxes and hiking up the minimum wage, you sap resources from the company’s profits, meaning they cannot expand, create jobs, and employ more folks in the community.

Also, when the minimum wage is raised, you actually make things worse. Companies can’t just absorb the higher cost of doing business, so they typically pass off the cost to the consumer, raising the price of goods and services.

This eventually leads to a higher cost of living, which defeated the whole point of the minimum wage hike to begin with.

Now if only those on the left would grasp this.

[This article was written by Michael Cantrell]