Working over Spring Break-Minimum Wage

As spring break is approaching rather fast, I am thinking of the week of work I will return home to. I called my boss, back home in rural Wellsboro, PA, and asked to be put on the schedule for the upcoming week. I was thinking about my hourly wage of $5.25 and wondering if the government were to raise the minimum wage if it would affect the smaller rural communities. The company that I work for is a small company with a about twenty to twenty-five stores in New York and Pennsylvania. In most of there stores it is rare to find an employee working above $5.50 an hour with the exception of the salaried manager. I don't know of any employee who has received a raise from my company unless they were promoted to manager or assistant manager. If the government were to raise the minimum wage there is no way that the company would be able to pay all of their employees and would be forced to close a portion or all of their stores. It is very hard to find a job in my area that will pay anywhere close to the starting price of jobs in the State College area. I know that Wellsboro has a lower cost of living and that is why people are able to live off of the lower wages they make. Since the lower cost of living allows people to make less money, an increase in the minimum wage would wipe out small business, especially in areas with a similar situation to Wellsboro. This is why I fear a raise in the minimum wage, for the small business owners in areas with low costs of living, that can not afford to pay their employees up to two dollars more an hour.