minimum wage was never intended to be a livable wage
I believe Roosevelt said something along the lines of business that depend on paying less than a living wage do not have the right to exist or something. A simple search brought that up. Can you cite a source that is contemporary to when minimum wage was established?
There was an article posted recently that that the average income of a 7-11 owner was less than $40K a year and just to get that most owners are working in their stores.
Small business owners are not getting rich.
The other argument I hear is if they can’t afford to pay more the store shouldn’t exist. Which is funny coming from a site where many of the posters work for non profitable VC backed companies.