Small businesses weighed in on a $15 minimum wage. Here's what they said.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

More than half of small business owners at least somewhat support a $15 per hour federal minimum wage, according to a survey of 353 small business owners by software firm Skynova, Inc.

About 35% of small business owners in the survey strongly supported a $15 minimum wage, while another 20% supported it, with 15% somewhat supporting it, according to the survey. Only 8% strongly oppose it.

Businesses owners in support believed a higher minimum wage — the current federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour — would help stimulate the economy, increase the standard of living for workers and generate higher employee morale.

But those same business owners also saw big downsides, including higher costs, increased difficulty in growing or starting a business and higher unemployment.

https://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/news/2021/05/20/minimum-wage-small-business-15-amazon.html

[JI7]

1. Businesses need people with money .While it might be difficult when it comes to cost of employees

especially early on, in the long run if people don't have money they wont get customers .

[Solly Mack]

2. I know of small business owners who all say some form of the following: The business was their dream

and they feel potential employees don't understand the sacrifices the owners make to offer jobs in the community. They all come from the angle that they are doing people a favor by offering a job.

I tell them all the same thing.

The business was their dream - not the dream of the employees.

The employees want a living wage. They don't want to hear about how your own salary is paltry because of overhead.

Potential employees do not exist to help you make your dream a reality.

If you haven't factored in a living wage and benefits into your business plan, then you are the problem. Not the people unwilling to work for peanuts.

Hire your spouse and children. They'll work for free (maybe).

Hoping people are desperate enough to work for shit-wages isn't a business plan - it's exploitation.

It's good to see so many support a higher minimum wage.

But a higher minimum wage isn't necessarily a living wage.

I'm all for people starting their own businesses.

I just don't think their dream should come at the suffering of others.

[area51]

4. +1 n/t

[Johnny2X2X]

5. There are two types of small business owner bosses

Ones that think their workers are lucky that they graced them with a job, and ones that feel lucky to be able to hire people to help them achieve their dream.

You nailed it. If their dream is only achievable by paying slave wages then their dream is not something that society needs. There's this attitude that owning a business guarantees wealth.

My wife worked for a medium sized garden center years ago, the Christmas Party was telling, the patriarch of the family that owned the business would give a speech that revealed his character every year. He talked of job creating, how because of him, his employee's children have shoes on their feet and roofs over their heads. I never got the chance, but I desperately wanted to say to him, "Hey Archie, you ever think about it this way, because of your employees, you have shoes on your feet and a roof over your head?"

And this guy was so preachy about hard work it made you sick. The truth is, his parents built a business and that business was struggling until the state decided to build a highway adjacent to their garden center, the farm land they owned was sold at a premium to build this highway on. Once people could get to his Garden Center easily, the business flourished.

And how does he treat his workers? Pays them the bare minimum, didn't offer health care until he was forced to by ObamaCare. All the while he owns a million dollar home on a lake, and has bought similar homes for his children who also now help him run the Garden Center. In the meantime, his workers live in trailer parks and tiny apartments trying to scrape by to feed themselves.

Unfortunately, they may not be an exception to the rule. There's a master of the universe mentality most small business owners get, like they're doing something as great as landing on the moon by buying and selling something for a profit.

Doesn't mean there aren't great business owners out there. My wife owns a small gardening business now, she's constantly paying her employees bonuses that make their pay higher than her own at times just because she actually cares abut them and wants to make sure they are doing well.

[Solly Mack]

6. There are decent owners, I know.

And they make a big difference in their own lives and those who work for them, like your wife.