Does Minimum Wage Help?

Say you work at a company, you are one of the lowest paid employees there. You are paid five dollars an hour to do menial work. There are twenty other co-workers at the same level as you. You aren’t making much money for sure, but you do have a job. You don’t have a very good education or any marketable skills so any job is a good job for you to help put bread on the table. Now imagine the country you work in decides to institute a minimum wage law. It is said that the poor are being exploited and are working for terrible wages. The law passes because it sounds like the most obvious thing and to oppose it would be to oppose the poor and disenfranchised. The law states that no one can work for less than seven dollars an hour. Now your company is forced to make a decision, they cannot afford to pay all twenty of the employees the new wage, so some have to be let go. Imagine this situation replaying itself now across the entire country, hundreds of thousands of low-level workers laid off because their companies were forced to pay more to existing employees. Now, not only were they laid off, but now because there is a glut in similar workers, it is even harder to find a job. Do minimum wage laws create unemployment? Is it better to have a job at a poor pay or to be unemployed and perhaps have to depend on the state? What are your thoughts?