Minimum wage opponents often argue that businesses owned by marginalized communities, which include woman-owned, Black-owned, and immigrant-owned businesses, are exceptionally vulnerable to minimum wage increases. Little research has investigated this claim. Using a unique survey of Seattle businesses that includes owners’ nativity status and was administered while the city began to phase in its $15 minimum wage ordinance, the authors find that immigrant-owned businesses respond to the higher minimum wage in ways that largely conform to the responses of other businesses. Nevertheless, immigrant-owned franchises are less likely than other franchises to fire employees, reduce employees’ hours, or lower the wages of employees earning more than $15 per hour. Evidence suggests that immigrant franchisees have a lower likelihood of passing the increased labor costs onto employees because they use fewer employees and rely more heavily on family labor compared to other franchisees. The authors’ findings suggest that firms owned by marginalized and nonmarginalized groups respond to municipal-level minimum wage increases in comparable ways. Nevertheless, marginalized status may matter more in certain sectors of the economy than in others.

最低工资反对者经常争辩说，边缘化社区拥有的企业，包括女性拥有的、黑人拥有的和移民拥有的企业，特别容易受到最低工资增长的影响。很少有研究调查过这种说法。使用一项针对西雅图企业的独特调查，该调查包括业主的出生身份，并在该市开始逐步实施其 15 美元的最低工资条例时进行管理，作者发现移民拥有的企业对较高最低工资的反应在很大程度上符合其他企业的反应。尽管如此，移民拥有的特许经营权与其他特许经营权相比，解雇员工、减少员工工作时间或降低每小时收入超过 15 美元的员工工资的可能性较小。有证据表明，与其他加盟商相比，移民加盟商将增加的劳动力成本转嫁给员工的可能性较低，因为他们使用的员工更少，并且更依赖家庭劳动力。作者的研究结果表明，由边缘化和非边缘化群体拥有的公司以类似的方式对市政一级的最低工资增长作出反应。然而，在某些经济部门中，边缘化地位可能比其他部门更重要。