The debate over a $15 minimum wage has reached Nebraskaland, where workers have argued for and against it on their lunch breaks. When the company announced that it was introducing the higher wage floor, many new employees were elated, but many veterans were not.

“I was a little bit upset because I think they should have worked a little bit more time like I did,” said Luis Quiles, 40, who started at $10 an hour as a forklift driver in 2001. Today, he earns $19 an hour, as a shipping receiver. He added, “I opened the doors for them.”

Still, Mr. Quiles, who has two teenage sons, said he had come to support the $15 minimum wage for both his company and the rest of the state because it would give his sons a better start than he had. “If it benefits them, it benefits me, because they’re going to be helping me with the bills,” he said.

Mr. Romanoff said that because of resistance from some employees, the company had decided to phase in the wage increase. Workers who already earned $15 an hour or more received their regular annual raises, but did not receive any additional bonuses.

Mr. Romanoff, who got his start dealing in oxtails, beef livers, cow’s feet and other cheap meat parts that no one else wanted, rings up more than $450 million a year, in sales to supermarkets, stores and wholesale companies in eight states. The company is based in a 100,000-square-foot warehouse in Hunts Point, where animal heads are mounted on the walls and nearly every aspect of the operation has been computerized to improve efficiency while moving an average of two million pounds of meat a day.