Low-wage workers are fired up about the potential for a big increase in the minimum wage, but small business owners see legislatively mandated pay hikes as “irresponsible and prohibitive” and adding to the burden of high health care and energy costs.

“Owning and operating a business in the Commonwealth is problematic enough without added labor costs,” National Federation of Independent Business State Director, Chris Carlozzi said in a statement ahead of a public hearing on wage hike bills. “The small business community is already tasked with the financial burdens of mandatory paid sick leave, the MassHealth assessment, highest-in-the-nation health insurance premiums, and out-of-control energy costs. To even consider dramatically increasing the minimum wage rate to $15 an hour by 2021 is irresponsible and prohibitive to job creation.”

The Raise Up Massachusetts coalition, which pressured lawmakers to increase the wage floor in 2014, is threatening to go to the ballot next year with a $15 minimum wage if lawmakers do not pass a bill to its liking.

The coalition is backing legislation (S 1004/H 2365) filed by the late Sen. Ken Donnelly and Rep. Dan Donahue that would raise the minimum hourly wage to $15 by 2021 and increase wages for tipped workers. The Labor Committee is hearing the bill Tuesday.

“For Massachusetts companies, especially many small business owners, they cannot afford to pay higher wages and continue to hire new employees because of state mandated cost continuing to rise,” Associated Industries of Massachusetts (AIM) wrote to Rep. Paul Brodeur and Sen. Jason Lewis, the co-chairmen of the committee. Another hike in the minimum wage would have the “perverse effect of limiting opportunity for young and lower-skilled workers and pushing jobs out of the market,” Bradley MacDougall, AIM’s vice president for government affairs, told the committee chairmen.

The minimum wage in January rose to $11, the last of three mandated one-dollar increases required under the 2014 law.