Can someone answer my question about the minimum-wage hike?

[Atman]

9. Opening a successful business means research and planning.

Just because ones dream is to own a sports memorabilia store that doesn'take it viable. Think realistically; selling a product relatively few people need, how many autographed baseballs or fan shirts can you possibly sell in order to cover rent and utilities, and wages for an employee or two, and then still have enough left over to pay yourself even a modest wage? This is the mistake of so many small businesses like the ones you described. Greeting cards? You get 'em at CVS or the grocery store, or print the online. How many could you sell and still make even $31k a year?

If you want to succeed, serve a market no one is serving. Better yet, create a market no one else has thought of. Every small town has those type of redundant little places you described, with nowhere near enough of a population base to support them. In fact, most of those places should be Mom & Pops with zero employees, so minimum wage isn't even a factor.

Do a business plan, crunch the numbers. Research your market. If you can't realistically sell enough product to pay your overhead, it's not because of the minimum wage. It's because it's a bad business plan.