I remember an old lady talking about the diner her daughter and son in law were going broke running. She came in and raised prices 10 cents here, 15 cents there, and buck there. And after a few months the books were a lot better.

You wouldn’t notice, but many millions of people would. This is pretty established economic theory of supply and demand curves. Are you arguing that increasing prices doesn’t decrease demand?

Why do you think companies don’t just raise prices by $1, since jimmaswell won’t even notice it or care?

I’ve never heard that increasing minimum wage will be the end of small business, I’ve just heard that it will be incrementally harder to put those wages and number of jobs at the low end of the wage increase will go down. (And that’s what happens) Again, that’s a supply and demand thing.

Are you arguing that prices don’t have an impact on purchases? Again, how do you explain companies just increasing prices arbitrarily? What do you think stops them from doing this?

We used to go to Red Robin at least once a month. It would cost us about $30-35 to feed all 3 of us before tip. We stopped going regularly and recently went back on a whim. Our bill was for $60 for 3 burgers and (non-alcoholic) drinks, still before tip. Nevermind that they were obviously running on a skeleton crew. I can go to a fancier place like cowfish/bad daddies for a better burger and better experience that actually costs less, or go "cheap" to five guys or culvers or freddies.

I'm not sure what their reasons are for raising their prices so much compared to 5-6 years ago, but it will probably be a long time before we go back, the prices are just too high compared to other options.

Small price changes don't necessarily always impact purchases, as in the example of the diner the other poster gave. You also wouldn't pass up a gum stick if it was 57 cents instead of 56, and you wouldn't buy more if they were 10 cents. There was a term for this in my economics class but I don't remember, essentially elasticity of demand is not always a perfectly continuous function in reality. Somewhere like Wal Mart might have the price figured out perfectly by their team of researchers but probably not most non-chain restaurants.

I'm with you, but others do notice. I know several people who will off-handedly comment on small increases in produce prices.

Likewise with items moving on/off the dollar menu at fast food places.

If there are 4 people in your family, that's an extra $4 at least, which is ~30 minutes of minimum wage, or about 1.25% of a week's pay before taxes. I'm not going to try to guess what portion of that hypothetical family's income is expendable, but if it's 1.25% of their total weekly earnings then it's probably a much higher percentage of their weekly disposable income.

If you've got $40 a week left over as disposable income, an extra $4 starts to seem like a lot more. In an economy where most people can't cover a surprise $200 bill, $4 means something to a lot of people.