I’m thinking of a woman. Married, three children, works hard – maybe 10 or 12 hours a day – to provide for her family. She works Saturdays, even Sundays sometimes.Today she earns $10/hour and really would like to earn $15/hour. Suddenly, her city enacts a $15 minimum wage. Surprising to many is her distress at the news. Indeed, this new requirement will translate to her earning less money, and is putting her job in jeopardy.

How is this possible? This woman is the owner of a small coffee shop in St. Paul. She is a “sole proprietor,” so her business runs through her personal income tax returns. An increase in costs will require her to lay off one of her seven staff members and decrease her own take-home pay after taxes to $9/hour. Another option, one she simply won’t choose, would be to keep all her staff, move them all to part-time, and eliminate the health care benefits she provides – a cost to her of over $3.50 per person per hour. What should she do?

This woman, a composite of people I’ve talked with in recent months, is representative of some small business owners, many of whom – if measured by take-home pay per hour – most certainly are low wage earners and sensitive to changes in wage levels.

The St. Paul City Council is wrestling with how to implement a proposed $15 minimum wage. And I know council members are getting real pressure from advocates on all sides of the issue. They deserve credit because they are thoughtfully considering the ramifications and working hard on behalf of the broadest communities in St. Paul, to make this work – for all of us. The amendment proposed by Councilmember Dai Thao at the Oct. 24 council meeting is one such example. Adjusting the slope of the wage increases is tremendously helpful – while still getting us to the new minimum wage.

Raising the minimum wage is a complicated issue. The Saint Paul Area Chamber of Commerce shares the desire to help reduce poverty in our city. We also want to help get this ordinance, only one step in the direction of reducing poverty, “as right as possible,” with specific consideration for sectors within the community most vulnerable to imposed cost increases.

We submitted a letter to the City Council with our amendment recommendations. That letter was informed both by our work on the Citizens League Minimum Wage Panel earlier this year, and through ongoing conversations with small business owners. No doubt the most debated issue to date is the question of a tip adjustment. The draft ordinance currently does not allow for a tip adjustment.

To give context, Seattle allows for small employers to meet the $15 minimum wage by paying no less than $12 per hour in wages and contributing at least $3 per hour toward an employee’s medical benefits and/or tips. In Minneapolis, tips do not count towards the $15 minimum wage.

In working with full-service restaurant owners and associations, we proposed two tip adjustment options, both based on the request for tips to be counted toward that employee’s minimum wage. Owners are highly motivated by how to meet the city’s requirement; how not to penalize tipped employee wages moving forward; and how to ensure the viability of their very businesses as they face a 90 percent increase in wages being required of them.

There is much we don’t know about how a minimum wage, driven not by the markets but by government, will impact employees and businesses. One thing we do know: The smallest companies and those with tipped employees will feel this the most. And these companies almost exclusively are Sole Proprietorships or S Corporations, a tax status that requires an owner to report all earnings on personal tax returns.

Organizers who come into Minnesota pushing for an imposed minimum wage speak of “big bad business” taking advantage of employees. On the contrary, as shared in the illustration above, the employers who will be impacted the most are our neighbors, our friends, our own families. They want to offer a good service to their customers, they care about their employees, and want to continue to provide both for them – including health benefits that are paid on top of the minimum wage.

So when I hear again how these small businesses, somehow, “deserve to pay,” and how a business closing is acceptable as the “price of progress,” I would ask that you look to your neighbor, your friend, to determine if you’d feel differently if that person suddenly were out of work. Because, in all likelihood, the only person in a small business who will not earn $15 per hour moving forward is the owner.

B Kyle is President and CEO of the St. Paul Area Chamber of Commerce and was co-chair of the Citizens League minimum wage panel earlier this year.