Businesses in Ontario and Seattle were handed a perfect opportunity to raise their prices. Normally a price increase would cause a loss of business to competitors, but a price raise blamed on the minimum wage hike would have been tolerated much better.

- competitors should be raising their prices too, so there shouldn't be competitors to desert to - opponents of the wage hike will blame the government instead of the business for the wage hike - supporters of the wage hike should be happy to support the higher wages

Yet businesses in Ontario have responded by cutting employee benefits and increasing tip splitting, resulting in significant negative publicity and boycotts.