McDonald's has been paying $20/hour in Switzerland for a long time.

Given how rich the US is as a country, I always found it surprising that minimum wage there is so incredibly low.

Keep in mind the minimum wage also varies by state. The state minimum wages overrule the federal minimum wage when eclipsed (so if the federal rate is $7.25, and Maryland state is $12, then you have to pay $12 as a business in Maryland). It's probably ideal that the minimum wage is state based, with a lower baseline provided by the federal, given the extreme variance in prosperity and income levels between the states.

It'd be like Germany and Greece or Lithuania having the same minimum wage, if you had Massachusetts or Connecticut with the same minimum wage as West Virginia or Arkansas (two of the poorest states).

GDP per capita (loose reference for income potential) in New York state is $90,000 per year ($87k in Massachusetts). It's $40k to $45k in Mississippi / Arkansas / West Virginia by comparison.

So for reference that $90k New York figure is higher than Norway and comparable to Switzerland. And the Mississippi figure is a bit above Italy. Base wages just can't rationally be the same in Italy and Switzerland for common service jobs.

Almost nobody earns the federal minimum wage in the US. It doesn't matter very much at the present rate and could be easily, safely raised with minimum labor disruption. The federal minimum wage hasn't been relevant for 15-20 years, because the market left it behind.

To push the lower tier wages higher, the US would need to set the federal minimum wage up near $15 these days. That's the floor that Amazon (via their fulfillment centers) has placed on the labor market as they compete to fill their huge need for labor, pulling it away from companies like Walmart. You can now earn $15 working at Walmart, Target, Amazon, grocery stores and a lot of convenience stores or similar type service businesses with essentially zero labor skill or experience.

I heard recently that there is a separate, lower minimum wage for people with disabilities, which I was pretty shocked and disgusted to learn.

I also heard that there is a separate minimum wage for tipped jobs - something in the region of a paltry $2.50/h, if I recall correctly?

The tipped jobs minimum wage is a bit odd in that its not the actual minimum wage, its more of the minimum amount a business can pay an employee that otherwise earns at least the traditional minimum wage via tips. So if you're not pulling in enough tips to meet the federal or state minimum wage, the business has to make up that shortfall.

Thinking about it, this also disproves the common refrain by business owners of "we can't raise wages, or we'd have to raise prices, and people wouldn't pay them".

Aside from the fact that prices wouldn't need to go up that much, as wages are only part of running costs, people are already paying more than the sticker price by paying in tips.

... while my son works as a math/reading tutor for $8/hr. He thinks he's being taken advantage of, and I'm not sure I necessarily disagree.

There are quite a few cafes and restaurants near us that have closed or reduced their opening hours. Our nearest farm shop has removed what used to be a thriving cafe.

I get the impression a lot of these service businesses just won't be viable in a higher wage economy.

There's one in my neighborhood that's paying less then that and still multiple people work there.