For small businesses, all the recent talks about increasing the minimum wage would mean drastic changes for how their establishments are run.
Steve Kuo, manager at the family-owned restaurant Wok N Roll, emphasized that restaurants and businesses of a smaller size ultimately have smaller profit margins than big franchise corporations.
“There’s just no way that a business can suddenly have higher expenses and continue to make the same amount of money and sustain itself,” Kuo said. “Maybe for some bigger corporations they can get by with maintaining prices or laying off less important workers, but for small businesses like us, the only choice is to raise our prices.”
The Long Beach City Council voted unanimously on August 11 to commission the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation to study the economic impacts of raising minimum wage as well as methods of wage enforcement.
The study will also examine potential incentives for businesses and nonprofit organizations.
The vote came on the same day that the Raise the Wage Coalition, a nationwide organization dedicated to implementing legislation to raise the minimum wage in different regions, advocated for stronger wage enforcement, including more protection against wage theft, paid sick days and a higher minimum wage.
“I don’t think that every business, especially larger corporations, will be affected immediately, but I am worried of a kind of trickle-up effect that will eventually raise the cost of living within the next few years,” said Andrew Sarabia, a junior graphic design student who works at the Marina Pacifica Best Buy. “However, I do support the minimum wage increase since I think inflation is inevitable sooner or later anyway.”
The Long Beach City Council plans to review the research in the coming months to see if raising the minimum wage will have any adverse factors that might offset the benefits.
“Despite being the sixth largest economy in the state, almost 40 percent of Long Beach workers earn poverty wages of less than $15 an hour,” said Rusty Hicks, executive secretary-treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor and an organizer of the Raise the Wage campaign, in a press release. “We look forward to working with the City of Long Beach to pass a complete minimum wage increase with strong wage enforcement and paid sick days.”
Emily Lee, a junior business major at California State University, Long Beach and an employee at Wok N Roll, said that despite all the benefits of higher pay, an increase to the minimum wage wouldn’t be without drawbacks.
Said Lee, “Even though the extra money will help immensely, especially for students like me who pay for almost everything ourselves, I think that a minimum wage increase will also make the cost of living go up at least as much,”