My parents own an ice cream shop, and rely heavily in its operation on eight 16-20 year olds working part-time schedules of 16-24 hours a week, along with one full-time manager who is assisted by my parents in their free time. Over the course of a 7 day work week, they typically employ the part-time workers for a total of about 340 hours a week.

Raising the minimum wage by .70 increased their straight wage expense by $240 a week, or about $1000 a month. But it had collateral consequences as well, as their worker’s comp. and unemployment insurance costs rose in relation to their payroll, as did their payroll tax contributions. The combination of wage increase and the various increases that spin off that wage increase was about $1500 a month. This is against a total wage expense for the part-timers of about $8000 a month.

Now, the same thing is going to happen next month — another increase of .70 per hour, totaling about $1500 a month in additional operating expenses is going to kick in. This will come on top of significant increases over the past year in product costs — multiply the increased cost of milk you are paying at the supermarket several times over and you get a feel for the increased cost of buying ice cream on a large scale for a business establishment.

They will raise the prices a little, but not enough to cover the total increase. They will cutback on the hours the part-timers work, and work a few more hours themselves. And if they lose another worker, they probably won’t hire a replacement.

My parents are both in their late 60s, and they don’t want to work 60 hour weeks at an ice cream parlor they bought on a lark after they retired.

But they aren’t going to operate it as a money loser either.

When Congress increased the minimum wage, for many many small business operators such as my parents, Congress took the profit from the business right out of their pocket. I’d be surprised if my parents’ shop made more than $3,000 or $4,000 month in profit — with them taking nothing in terms of a wage for themselves. If they had not cut-back their part-time work force payroll, the minimum wage hike would have taken every bit of that profit away.

Now they are working more than they want, and for a very modest annual return on their labor and investment.

And two fewer teenagers will be employed by them this summer than was the case last year.

See that's some of the problems that need fixed. This money debt scandal and other things. But just because the scheme is meant for us to go in debt doesn't mean you have to fall for it and go into debt.

Not all minimum wage workers complain or whine and I give them many applauses for that, but there are some who do.