My life is a tribute to the American Dream. My business partner and I started with 300 record albums and a $20 booth at the local farmers market in 1979. Today, Vintage Vinyl is the largest independent music store in the Midwest. We stage 150 in-store concerts a year and are known internationally for recorded music in all forms.
We built our business on wages above the minimum. This has given us devoted long-term employees whose ongoing relationships with customers have been vital to our success.
The last two decades have been tough on the music business. We’ve outlasted a 20-store local chain and numerous regional and national chains. Most of those companies paid their employees minimum wage or barely above. My creative, dedicated, and better-paid employees won this life-or-death struggle for us.
While my competition dealt with the costly results of constant employee turnover, constant training costs, and the unsatisfied customers that turnover breeds, my employees added great value to my business.
Unfortunately, many American companies have been driving down wages to poverty levels that are too low for workers to live on and too low to sustain the consumer demand that businesses need to survive and thrive. In a race to the bottom, the winner ends up at the bottom.
The American Dream needs a minimum wage increase.
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