It is very difficult for the small business to afford staff. You need staff to grow, but before you can grow you need to employ people, but employing people takes you to the edge of bloody bankruptcy!
That is a real problem for the small business.
It is bloody expensive to have employees and there is no point pretending otherwise. It's not always affordable to have staff, even if by having them you would eventually grow and be able to afford them, iyswim. It would be good to have some recognition of that and some help for people who would like to employ people but simply can't afford it.
catch 22. need money to employ people need to employ people to grow business and make money need money from growth to afford to employ people to grow in the first place...
It's very difficult to jump that hurdle.
Also, the higher people's wages, the more expensive living becomes. Because the increased costs of employing people gets passed directly on to the consumer. So it becomes more expensive to live therefore wages need to go up therefore everything costs more therefore wages need to go up...
that's another catch22 and how the hell do you solve that one?
but people need to live. They need to eat and they need a roof over their heads and it's bloody hard to do that on minimum wage!
I wish I knew the answer. Wish I had a solution that would take all of the above into consideration. Because you can't look at one part of it. You have to see and understand how one part affects all others.