I hope we're not going to hear the tired argument that the burden of paying this little bit more will put small businesses into bankruptcy. This has for too long been used as an excuse for paying starvation wages and expecting gratitude in return.

It will hurt the small Mom and Pop business due to the fact that can not afford to pay it.
So they can not afford to pay students trying to get money toward their college money.

Raising THe minimum wage at this point will really put a big burden on small mom and pop business. It may not seem like a a big amount but it does add up quickly for small business owners.

The low wage earners can use all the help they can get and tend to spend most, if not all, of what they make. How can that not be helpful to the economy?

It can't hurt the economy and let's face it, small business' have the option to raise prices. The disenfranchised of this country have few options!

MikeQ, Maria, Christine Thomas, it will hurt the economy and some small business will go under.

Don't think so? Why don't you do a little investigation and find out how many store fronts in Manhattan are empty?

Small businesses do not have the option to raise prices in this economy because people will shop at other stores or not shop at all for things that are not absolute necessities.

I have been watching this terrible program of six decades. All kinds of wonderful part-time jobs have disappeared from the economy forever as a result. Admittedly, these were jobs on which one "could not support a family of four." However, they contributed significantly to family income.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/26/business/26antitrust.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

MM: Businesses that are that close to failing are bound to fail anyway from any of dozens of causes. It's not the end of the world if some businesses fail, but it can be desperately hard for thousands or millions trying to survive on minimum wage. Some perspective is in order. You see business as practically sacred; others see the well-being of large numbers of our fellows as more worthwhile. As CT said, businesses can raise prices. Sure, inflation can erase wage hike gains, but unless we remake our economy into something less ruthless, we have to keep making these adjustments to give people a bit of a break.

Mike Q, I know that my daughter may prefer to cut her household staff hours back if forced to pay higher wages.

My son-in-law, whose gasoline bills were $15,000. a month at the height of gas prices, will reduce the number of employees in his small business and ask the remaining ones to pick up the slack.

So some people will be working less hours and some will lose their jobs.

And yes businesses do fail but the empty storefronts are so significant as to be making news.

From the New York Times, July 21, 2009 comes this:

"...... The storefront vacancy rate in Manhattan is now at its highest point since the early 1990s — an estimated 6.5 percent — and is expected to exceed 10 percent by the middle of next year, according to data gathered by Marcus & Millichap Research Services, a national real estate investment brokerage based in Encino, Calif.

And those numbers do not capture the full story. Some of the more desirable shopping districts are littered with empty storefronts. For example, Fifth Avenue between 42nd Street and 49th Street, the stretch just south of Saks Fifth Avenue, has a vacancy rate of 15.3 percent, according to the brokerage Cushman & Wakefield.

In SoHo, from West Houston Street to Grand Street and Broadway to West Broadway, among the high-end boutiques, art galleries and restaurants, 1 in 10 retail spaces are now empty or about to be.

“I’ve never seen such an across-the-board problem,” said Lorraine Nadel, a lawyer who has represented tenants and landlords for 18 years. “Store owners can’t pay their rent, and they can’t keep their businesses going.”

It has long been difficult to run a small business in Manhattan, but a number of struggling store owners cite high rents and their landlords’ unwillingness to negotiate as the leading obstacles to their survival."

So MikeQ let's get a few more to "fail" with higher salaries to pay!

Oh, right, they were only going to fail anyway, I remember.

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