Karen Scott Scott: Minimum wage should be raised to $25 an hour Regardless of the impact it has in small business. Professor Galloway: As a small business owner, I can tell you with 100 certainty that this would tank my business and provide for my wife and my two kids. He says federal law mandates local governments that their own minimum wage But require that they benchmark it to local cost of living instead of one-size-fits-all approach.