I can't speak for all owners, but our franchisee had relatively higher standards than many. He expected QSC (quality, service, cleanliness) to surpass the minim

I can't speak for all owners, but our franchisee had relatively higher standards than many. He expected QSC (quality, service, cleanliness) to surpass the minimum expectations of the parent corporation. However, he was only willing to pay so much in salary. Just because we made the remaining people work harder didn't mean that things were the same in terms of QSC. Service was slower, and the place wasn't as clean. Quality didn't drop as much as the other two metrics. Also, he had a lot of longer term employees who were making more than min wage, but still would benefit if it was raised. So it became more economical to let them go, despite the loss of their higher productivity. Also, you can't just think in terms of the hourly rate. Increases in the hourly rate also affect worker's comp rates, Social Security contributions, etc. So an $8 increase would probably be at least a $10 cost increase to the owner.