While some have praised new legislation to increase the minimum wage from $6.50 per hour to $7.25 an hour, small businesses such as car washes are concerned that the wage hike might hurt their business. Car washes are particularly vulnerable to wage hikes since they often rely on low wage workers to provide both essential and supplemental service. While the wage hike will undoubtedly increase operating costs for many car wash owners, debate continues on how the new legislation will affect the car wash industry generally.

Articles from around the country are emerging about car wash owners who are expressing their concern. From Tampa, Richard Lane owner of Mariner Car Wash says:

“Naturally it affects the bottom line. We try to watch our labor more carefully, try not to get involved in overtime, we try to have enough people to where we don’t have to pay overtime.” If expenses keep going up, it may cost consumers, “It all takes some out of your profit and eventually we’ll have to go up in price I’m sure.” [read more...]

From, Madison, Wisconsin, Octopus Car Wash owner Jeff Jurkens also weighs in:

“Raising the pay of your employees doesn’t increase your business. So the money has to come from somewhere,” Jurkens said. “It takes away from the extra amount we have to pay our better employees.” [read more...]

And from Tucson, Arizona, Metro Car Wash owner Craig Celentano says:

We’re going to have to raise prices. There’s nothing we can do if we’re going to maintain service and the speed… We just hope we can still get people to wash and still be fair and still make a little money. [read more...]

We’ll continue to follow the details of this story carefully. Currently the House version of the bill does not contain any tax breaks for small businesses. However, the Senate version of the bill is expected to contain some provisions which might soften the impact for car wash operators. President Bush has also said that any minimum wage bill would need to offer protections for small businesses before he would consider signing it.