small businesses don't foot the bill, at least not to any painful level if they're anything approaching a reasonably run business. their customers might, and ha

small businesses don't foot the bill, at least not to any painful level if they're anything approaching a reasonably run business. their customers might, and having it be a blanket policy means that small businesses are not disadvantaged or penalized for not having the leverage of big businesses to distribute costs onto the rest of society (e.g., walmart and welfare). at most, on the margin, a small business might give employees 1-2 fewer hours per week. that actually puts selective pressure on small businesses to be more efficient, and therefore more competitive with big business. this also counters the other oft-cited rebuttal that people will lose jobs due to the minimum wage - no, they may lose an hour or two on the margin, but whole swaths of jobs aren't at stake, and their take-home will likely stay roughly the same even with fewer hours per week. economic lag isn't particularly relevant either, because folks making minimum wage turn around immediately and spend that money. there's virtually no lag there.