CBS Detroit: Marick Masters on Michigan small businesses, minimum wage increase
Michigan's minimum wage rises above $10 starting this year, but what does that mean for Michigan small businesses that may have small margins? The increase from $9.87 to $10.10 was set by the "Michigan Improved Workforce Opportunity Wage Act of 2018," and is part of multiple annual increases. Marick Masters, a professor of business at Wayne State University says this raise should be manageable when it comes to small businesses in the state. "Most recent year, you had about a 170,000-person increase in the number of employees in small businesses in Michigan. So that's something you want to sustain, and you wouldn't want to set the minimum wage perhaps at a level that would detract from that," says Masters. He says small businesses have been leading the way in job growth, not only nationally but in Michigan as well. He added about 2 million people in the state work for small businesses, about 48%of the workforce.