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Huffpost Business

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The restaurant industry, which employs one in 10 Americans, many of them earning low wages, says it can’t afford an increase in the federal minimum wage. On closer inspection, that argument isn’t as strong as it might seem.

While President Barack Obama’s proposal to raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour would increase costs for restaurants, it’s not clear how much. Labor makes up about one-third of restaurants’ total costs, but only 5 percent of restaurant workers earn the federal minimum wage, according to the National Restaurant Association. The average wage for non-supervisory restaurant workers is $9, which isn’t much below the president’s proposed level.

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