She was doing fine before the pandemic. The lunch crowd was enough to pay the bills, then she made her money on corporate catering. Having to cut capacity, combined with a decided lack of large corporate events over the past year, has hurt, but they have gotten by. I would assume that if she could get back to her pre-pandemic numbers, she would be able to manage with the wage hike, but at the current level, it would be too much. But this whole conversation started from a couple minutes of a phone call, not an extensive look at her finances. It make me do a bit of a double take, because it was a different side of the issue that I hadn't really thought about. So naturally, I brought it over here to get some other opinions.
Her problem is not about the minimum wage. It's about Covid.