The Impact of Minimum Wage on Small Businesses, Workers, and Employment in the United States
Dr. Navid Ghani

Abstract
Minimum wage issues are one of the most controversial and political topics in American politics today. It often causes companies, corporations, and other commercial and public interests alarm in the lack of certainty and answers to, “What if…” questions. This paper examines some of the most important issues related to the effects of raising minimum wage, based on new contributions in theoretical and empirical research, roughly since 1990. My purpose is to find literature on an explanation for the recent raise of minimum wage in the United States and to identify possible effects of this development. So far, there is no evidence of significant job losses for the workers affected by the minimum wage in most business. I also found no measurable price increase of products in retail business. Most of the studies point little to no employment responses to modest increases in the minimum wage, but it remains to be seen what happens to poverty and inequality and how the future affects businesses if the minimum wage increases.

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