If small businesses provide approximately half of all private jobs in America and about 70 percent of its economy, and if enforcing a livable wage will supposedly ruin small businesses, then the U.S. economy relies on an underpaid work force. It is cruel and ignorant for voters to keep operating under the illusion that poor people are leeches who don't work hard enough and just need to apply themselves or get a better education.
Conservative voters seem bent on maintaining a U.S. caste system where the poor not only have to stay poor, but also have to stay unhealthy, underfed and overcrowded. You don't want to pay your employees well or give them benefits, but you don't want government programs that help them instead of you.
It's time to demand that businesses treat their employees fairly or that the government collect the taxes necessary to keep families fed, sheltered, safe and healthy.
Alisa K. Terry
Springville