Imagine this: you’re a single mom with two kids and you make minimum wage. It’s a struggle just to make ends meet, but you work long hours because you want to give your children a decent life.

Today, you found yourself overjoyed because your pay increased from $9.47 an hour to $11.

You’re ecstatic because this extra money means no more late rent payments and no more struggling just to put food on the table.

Unfortunately, it’s not that simple.

In the next few weeks this single mother of two will find that while she makes more money, the prices in the supermarket skyrocketed.

Next, her boss cuts her hours at work, and only a few months later, she will lose her job when the small business she worked for closes.

Many citizens have endured this situation throughout the country due to rapid increases of the minimum wage.

The proposed Initiative-1433 would rapidly increase the minimum wage to $13.50 over the course of the next four years, beginning on Jan. 1, 2017, when the minimum wage would jump from $9.47 to $11.00.

While increasing the minimum wage seems like a good idea, the consequences of raising the minimum wage too fast could have enormous consequences on the economy, said Yvette Ollada, spokesperson of the Defeat I-1433 coalition.

“We don’t have any data to support that the economy could handle anything over $12 and it will lead to job losses,” Ollada said. “We are not opposed to raising the minimum wage; we are opposed to the amount and the rate at which the minimum wage would increase.”

Jeffrey B. Wenger, a senior policy researcher with the Rand Corporation, wrote in a Sept. 1 article that labor oftentimes follows the law of supply and demand – if you raise the price of labor then businesses simply won’t hire as many workers.

Raising the minimum wage won’t end up helping members of the lower class if many of them lose their jobs as a result – and it’s no surprise that large corporations easily dismiss workers when the price for their labor rises.

However, small businesses will find themselves in a much tighter position – without the means of paying these increased wages, many small businesses will close.

But don’t just take my word for it – look at the evidence, it already happened.

Shah Burnham, owner of a small pizza shop in Seattle, told Q13 Fox in April 2015 that the city’s 2015 minimum wage increase forced her to close her pizza shop, putting herself and her 12 employees out of work.

Similarly, according to a Feb. 11, 2015, Seattle Times article, the Seattle-based company Cascade Designs relocated one fifth of its jobs to a new manufacturing site in Nevada in order to keep costs down.

If consequences burden Seattle as a result of raising the minimum wage, how will it affect the rest of the state?

Instead of raising the minimum wage, we should follow Canada’s lead. According to an Oct. 7 article from The Huffington Post, the Canadian government plans to focus on giving low-income families more money through a new child benefit and making college more affordable, rather than increasing the minimum wage.

Justin Trudeau, the Prime Minister of Canada, said this decision would better help individuals who were “facing economic barriers.”

This is the same approach the U.S. should be taking to help citizens who struggle economically.

While raising the minimum wage initially seems like a good idea, the ramifications proposed by I-1433 are not worth the risk.

Editor’s note: This column is part of a head-to-head series. Read the other side here.

Emily Hogan is a freshman genetics and cell biology major from Harrington, Delaware. She can be contacted at 335-2290 or by [email protected]. The opinions expressed in this column are not necessarily those of the staff of The Daily Evergreen or those of The Office of Student Media.