Every business who is raising prices to support paying their workers minimum wage are at fault.
Minimum wage laws are a trailing benefit. Always behind the times. Every raise to the minimum wage is a (partial) catch up to where it really should be in terms of the concept of a living wage (for anyone - not the Republican talking point, entirely invented out of thin air, that it's meant to be for teenagers with part time jobs).
Those business owners, until each advance, are already making out at the benefit of their workers. So you can blame poor planning, poor foresight there.
And if that's still a painful pill to swallow, rather than "government hates small business", then as another reminder - you have no constitutional right to a profitable business.
I don't think you understand how businesses even work. If a company has to charge X amount to stay above water, and you raise wages, X has to increase. This isn't about some "constitutional right to a profitable business." It's that if the business isn't profitable, it goes under, and then no one has a job because there's no money to pay them with. Is that what you want?
I am saying businesses KNOW that the minimum wage is behind where it should be, so when it rises to where it should be, that is not an attack on them. They should have foresight. The minimum wage rising is making those employees whole, not giving them an advantage.
Yes, costs increase. Failure to plan for that is poor planning. Maybe you should have smaller expenses, instead of expecting society to allow you to underpay employees. Maybe the owner doesn't need a new Mercedes or a second international vacation for their family that year.
If paying workers a liveable wage makes your business not profitable, then why is it on the workers to sacrifice to keep you in the black? Small business owners are often all about bootstraps and such, but believe themselves to be an inviolate part of America.
To be very clear, small business is very important. However, it is not more important than people being able to afford food and shelter. The poverty line, which is used to help determine the minimum wage, is set at "3 times the cost of minimum dietary requirements in 1963". It doesn't cover shelter at all.
Looking at inflation alone, minimum wage should be hitting or exceeding $20/hr. Small businesses who have coasted - or struggled - paying employees $7.25/hr for DECADES (fun fact, the gap between minimum wage increases gets longer and longer every cycle) shouldn't be expecting a free ride just because "small business!"
There are ways to have a profitable business that pays an appropriate wage. Sometimes that comes at the cost of owner dividends. So be it.
Minimum wage laws are a trailing benefit. Always behind the times. Every raise to the minimum wage is a (partial) catch up to where it really should be in terms of the concept of a living wage (for anyone - not the Republican talking point, entirely invented out of thin air, that it's meant to be for teenagers with part time jobs).
Those business owners, until each advance, are already making out at the benefit of their workers. So you can blame poor planning, poor foresight there.
And if that's still a painful pill to swallow, rather than "government hates small business", then as another reminder - you have no constitutional right to a profitable business.