Resources

By Holly Sklar, CEO, Business for a Fair Minimum Wage

Selection of studies on the impact of wages on employment, turnover, productivity, prices, customer service, spending, health, safety, and more.

We are currently experiencing the longest period without a federal minimum wage increase since it was first enacted in 1938 to help our nation recover from the Great Depression. Business for a Fair Minimum Wage supports raising the federal minimum wage to $15 by 2025, as called for in the Raise the Wage Act of 2021, using the same federal phase-in timeline for businesses of all sizes.

Restaurant owner perspectives on raising the federal minimum wage to $15 and phasing out the subminimum wage for tipped workers.

SUMMARY: The minimum wage sets the wage floor across Virginia. It’s currently too low to provide a solid floor for businesses, the workforce and the economy. A minimum wage increase should be phased in statewide, as passed by the House in HB 395, raising the rate to $15 by 2025. The amended bill passed in the Senate, SB 7, would introduce needless complexity and growing inequity into minimum wage law by breaking Virginia’s statewide minimum wage into regional minimum wages. ...

Here's a sampler of restaurant owner perspectives on fair minimum wages for all workers, including tipped workers...

June 23, 2015

My name is Bob Olson and I own Olson & Associates, an insurance agency serving Illinois with offices in Lombard and Springfield. I’m also the State General Agent of American Income Life, which covers more than 2 million policyholders in Illinois and around the nation. Raising the minimum wage is an essential step in insuring a more healthy state economy.

June 23, 2015

My name is Elizabeth Colon, President and Founder of Metaphrasis Language & Cultural Solutions and recipient of the 2014 Illinois Small Business Person of the Year award by the U.S. Small Business Association (SBA). I was also named 2015 Business Owner of the Year by the National Association of Women Business Owners (Chicago).

National executive committee member of the Main Street Alliance small business network and member of Business for a Fair Minimum Wage
June 23, 2015

My name is David Borris and I own a 30-year-old catering business with a full-time staff of 31 people and over 90 part-time and seasonal employees. I pay a starting wage of $11.00 an hour – well above the current Illinois minimum wage of $8.25. And my business is thriving.

Paying good wages is part of my recipe for success. Raising the minimum wage is smart policy for Illinois.

61% of small business owners with employees support raising the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 an hour and adjusting it to keep up with the cost of living in future years, according to a scientific national opinion poll.

Two out of three small business owners (67%) support increasing the federal minimum wage and adjusting it yearly to keep up with the cost of living. The strong support for a minimum wage raise is particularly striking since the small business owners are predominately Republican. The poll was conducted March 4-10, 2013 by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research on behalf of Small Business Majority. The minimum wage, now $7.25 an hour, was last increased in 2009.