The Minimum Wage & Math

[DukeDevil]

9. A possible negative side effect

Here's one way a small business owner might look at it (speaking from my experience doing budgeting and staffing for a consulting group). Using your numbers, if I have ten employees working at minimum wage ($7.25 an hour), and it looks like we assume they work 40 hrs/week every week of the year, my total budget for payroll is $150,800 (7.25*40*52*10). If minimum wage goes up to $8.50, I can only support 8.5 employees at full-time on my payroll budget (150800/17680). I need to either scrap together extra cash (maybe possibly, maybe not), cut hours, or let some people go.