Increasing minimum wage in Arizona sounds like an easy decision. Increasing take-home pay for people across the state sounds as if it would improve quality of life for millions of people. However, that’s only half of the picture. With 6.6% of Arizonans employed in the hospitality and leisure industry any change, whether it has positive or negative results, has the potential to impact many, many families.

Two-thirds of employees working in hospitality or leisure made minimum wage in 2015. The vast majority of those jobs were in service-related and restaurant jobs. That means that any change that is made to the minimum wage will have a concentrated impact on the service industry. Restaurants and other service industry employers already run a tight ship. They can only afford to employ the number of staff that they need with no overages. Raises to the minimum wage would force small food or service-related businesses to reduce their already lean staffs in order to accommodate the increase in payroll expenses. Instead of a rising minimum wage increasing quality of life for millions of Arizonans, it would lead to layoffs in one of the largest employment sectors in the state. Additionally, this raise in minimum wage would mean that employees that are new to their jobs would be making just as much money as employees who have spent years learning skills and gaining experience to make that much money. Business owners will not be able to give additional raises other than what will be required under the new law.

Others are concerned that raising the minimum wage could have other adverse effects such a increasing teenage unemployment. Teenages and young adults typically hold a larger share of the low-wage position, and would be the group most impacted by possible layoffs. Increased unemployment during such a critical point in time could mean that young people aren’t able to gain the skills that they need to advance their careers and may have to put off life events like buying a home or having a family due to the fact that they will have a harder time finding a job.

We wrote Senator Don Shooter, Senator Steve Farley, Senator John Kavanagh, and Senator Sylvia Allen to tell them what sort of impact raising minimum wage would have on our members. We believe that by being able to band together and advocate together, these senators were able to understand just how large of an impact raising the minimum wage will have on our members and the Arizona economy.