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By Kate Rogers
CNBC, October 11, 2016

As the general election draws ever closer, Main Street businesses are grappling with the idea of a higher federal minimum wage. Momentum for an increase is building. ... Separately, four states are considering raises for workers on November 8th: Arizona, Maine, and Colorado have $12 on the ballot, while Washington State is taking up a wage of $13.50 an hour, according to the National Employment Law Project. ...

No matter which side of the debate entrepreneurs fall on, they are certainly thinking about how wage hikes may impact their business and workforce. New data from Paychex, a small business payroll and benefits provider, finds that 47 percent of small companies rated the minimum wage increase as "important or very important." What's more, 64 percent of respondents said they supported increasing the federal minimum wage, while only 36 percent said they opposed a hike.

Boulder-based Judy Amabile, owner of Product Architects, Inc., is among those who would like to see a hike. The entrepreneur, whose business makes insulated water bottles called the Polar Bottle, starts her employees at $12 an hour, a move the company made several years ago. She said it's been great for business.

"We found that all of a sudden that people could get their car fixed when it broke down, they could get to work better, they could get daycare when their kid was sick," Amabile said. "We had employees that were more productive, and our turnover pretty much disappeared. At the end of the year, we looked at our per bottle labor cost and it actually had gone down." ...

 

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