Chris Colletti has been in business in Flagler County for more than five years.
He opened his Italian deli right in the middle of the Great Recession.
Ever since then, it has been a struggle to stay open.
His one saving grace is his employees, who are very familiar to him and work cheap.
“All family. Me. Mom, dad, wife, couple of cousins help out,” Colletti said.
Small business owners we spoke with all said the same thing: they would love to hire more people and pay them a good wage.
But they can't do that right now in Flagler, which is continuing to deal with some of the highest unemployment in the state.
“If we were in a good business environment, a good economy," said Colletti. "I'd have no doubt we'd be doing fine and I could hire, you know, two, three, five employees. If I had to hire? I'd probably have to shut down. Yeah.”
On the other side of the county in Bunnell, Dannielle Kelly is in a similar situation.
She, her husband and their son man the counter behind Dad's General Store off U.S. 1.
Her customers are those hit by unemployment or under-employment.
If they were making a few bucks more, they could spend it in her store and then she could afford to hire employees. Kelly said she'd then be in a better position to pay things forward.
“As our business grows, you know, our intentions are definitely to be able to pay our employees at least 10-something an hour so that they can survive,” Kelly said.
Yet both Kelly and Colletti said their first priority has to be keeping their utilities on before they can handle the added pressures of bringing on paid employees.
Currently, the minimum wage in Florida is $7.93 an hour. It's one of the highest in the country and nearly $.75 higher than the existing federal minimum wage.