An actual blog about minimum wage.

As a damned liberal, I'm all for a higher minimum wage.

As a small store owner, I'm a little ambivalent.

First of all, you should know that my employee wages are already pretty much at the proposed levels.

But what I like about this is that is My Idea. My reward to employees for doing a good job. My way of motivating them.

So here's the thing. I think minimum wage needs to go up. I guess I would probably moderate it slightly, though. Say 13.50 for the metro areas, and say 12.00 for the rural areas, at least to start with.

Given a longer time frame, say 5 years, I could see the 13.50 for rural and 15.00 for metro.

This is simply an acknowledgment that 15.00 will indeed impact on small businesses.

If it were a choice between the proposed increase and no increase at all, I'd bite the bullet and take the proposed increase.

So there you have it. A muddy compromise. Just a simple acknowledgement that there are two sides to the story, but ultimately, the wages need to go up.