By Isabel Engel
CNBC, July 1, 2023
Minimum wage increases are set to take effect July 1 in Nevada, Oregon, Washington, D.C. and various other cities and counties across the U.S. And for some local business owners, the hikes are a welcome — and much awaited — change.
An increase in minimum wage — and, thus, baseline salaries within local communities — allows businesses to flourish, Gina Schaefer, founder and co-owner of A Few Cool Hardware Stores, tells CNBC Make It. Schaefer owns 13 Ace Hardware stores throughout the D.C.-Maryland-Virginia metropolitan area.
“We will hopefully have more customers because people in town will be making more money. The city will have more tax revenue. And I like to hope and think that the employees who are making more money will have a more comfortable living existence in a lot of communities,” Schaefer says.
Paul Saginaw, a Las Vegas resident and owner of Saginaw’s Delicatessen, shares the same mindset.
“As far as minimum wage, it’s been way too low for way too long,” Saginaw says. ...
For the past two decades, Schaefer has been an advocate for increasing the minimum wage, which she says will be a critical improvement not only for employees, but for the health of local economies.
“The more money people make, the more they can spend, and I’m a local business, I need people to be able to spend money in my stores,” she says. ...
Schaefer opened her first hardware store in March 2003, and has always paid employees above minimum wage. ...
“To attract and retain employees who live close enough to be able to have easy commutes, they have to be able to afford to live here,” she says.. ...
Paul Saginaw has worked in the service industry for 41 years and has seen, firsthand, the power of raising wages.
Saginaw has paid his employees above minimum wage since 1982, he tells CNBC Make It. He was approached to open the delicatessen in Las Vegas seven years ago, after successfully opening and managing 11 businesses in the Ann Arbor, Michigan, area.
Paying above minimum wage is a business practice he is proud of, and one he believes is smart for all businesses to adopt. ...
“If you want your economy within your locale to be vibrant, then the people that are living there have to be making decent wages in order to keep the economy up,” he says. When employees have more money in their pockets, “it boosts the consumer buying power that we all depend on.” ...
“We put out a really great product and it’s delivered to our guests with a very high service. My message to everybody is: Give it a try, it actually works.”
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