California’s $20 minimum wage for fast-food workers backfired
California’s Governor Gavin Newson signed a bill raising the minimum wage from $16.00 to $20.00. Newsom previously stated that this increase would help workers earn more given the increasing costs that people faced. However, A Berkeley Research Group’s study discovered that the outcome turned out in a way that many commenters here suspected. Instead of fast-food workers being able to mitigate inflation pressures with their pay increases, employers reduced working hours, removed overtime, ended employee benefits, and increased menu prices. Employers were also quick to utilize automation in their operations.
From Fox News:
“The results indicate a plethora of negative outcomes such as higher menu prices for consumers, reductions in employee working hours, widespread elimination of overtime and loss of benefits for employees,” said Stephen Owen, an economics lecturer, University of California, Santa Cruz.
“Further decreases in employee opportunities are being driven by automation and the adoption of labor replacement technologies is accelerating.”
The report came after a Berkeley Research Group study discovered not only were there 10,700 jobs lost between June 2023 and June 2024 in the sector, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. The prices at the establishments soared by 14.5% after the new minimum wage became law.
Despite the findings, California officials doubled down on minimum wage laws.
A phased-in minimum wage hike in Los Angeles mandated up to $30 per hour for airport and hotel workers. The law was signed into law last year by Mayor Karen Bass, mandating that their hourly wage must be raised by $2.50 each year until they reach $30 in 2028.
The Hotel Association of Los Angeles (HALA) recently commissioned a study that found hotels have eliminated or expect to eliminate 6% of positions, roughly 650 jobs, since the Hotel Worker Minimum Wage Ordinance took effect in September.
While these laws raise concern from business owners, advocates in Oakland, California are pushing for a $30 minimum wage.
On the East Coast, the city council in New York City is weighing a proposal to boost the minimum wage to up to $30 — a move that newly elected Mayor Zohran Mamdani signaled that he would sign on the campaign trail — causing consternation among the business community.
Additional Reading:
Nelson, J. Q. (2026, April 7). California’s $20 minimum wage for fast-food workers led to ‘negative outcomes,’ researchers say. Fox News. Link.
Category: "Teh Stoopid", Democrats, Society
I can’t understand, how the democrats can’t understand!! It’s common sense. I know that common sense is not common, especially with the left, but at some point, common sense has got to take over. Right?
You have to understand who the politicians are speaking to about raising the minimum wage.
1-Financially illiterate people
2-Low skill/poor motivated workers
3-Party apparatchiks
In other words 75% of Blueanon voters in Deep Blue states.
My local Harbor Freight in Florida is hiring for $25/hr for FT work. BTW that translates to $50K plus a year.
I could never work at Harbor Freight. I’d owe them money on payday. I had that problem working at Lowe’s after retirement from the Army.
Newsom’s aide: “Sir, costs have gone up again. It almost looks like the republicans were right.”
Newsom: “I told you to call me ‘hands,’ not Sir. What’s this about costs?” *waves hands independently of body or speech*
Aide: “sir, I mean ‘hands,’ the Repubs are saying your previous policy decisions drove up the costs of doing business and people are getting fi…”
Newsom: “Never mind. Work up legislation raising wages, get a new tax on gas, and find me an angle by which I can blame Trump. I need that before I get on a plane to a red state where I can complain about Trump while ignoring our state’s failures.”
I used to go to micky dees, buy a burger, fries and a soda pop for one dollar and get change back….These fast food joints are supposed to be a stepping stone to get to a better pay job but for $30.00 bucks an hour,and heavens to Betsy, I’d sling hash for that..
Later Alligator
I’m a trained Electronics Mechanic, federal employee, cleared position, WG-11. That translates to a little over $37 hourly in my area. If a low-skill burger flipper can make $30, then I’m gonna need a commensurate raise to around $50-$60 hourly.
You and everyone else too. But just think what we will see with prices too. ($8.-10. Per gallon of milk, a pound of hamburger etc.)
As an attorney with over fifteen years of experience, I calculated that I was making about $35.00 per hour, working on average about 46 hours per week when I wasn’t in trial, when I worked twelve hours per day. But that was 27 years ago when I was still in private practice.
I think back to my first job. 1976. I was 14. Summer maintenance worker at a rocky mountain ski area. Minimum wage at the time was $3.35. I was exempt because I was seasonal. I made $2.75.
You should try getting by on the salary as Director of Media Relations for a proud but humble woman owned business that sells outdated overpriced Red Hat Software. 10 years on the job, and annual salary is holding steady at $0.00. If that next paycheck doesn’t clear, Hack is taking his ass down to Merritt Island and applying at All Points Logistics.
About that time I was making $2.50/hr. as a security guard in Fla.
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/minimum-wage/history/chart
The “minimum wage” is the basis price for “prevailing wage” calculations for union contracts. If the MW goes up, all such contracts auto-rachet up across all pay levels.
If zero people actually get a notional $30 minimum, its still the “prevailing” value for contracts.
That fraud should be specifically outlawed.
A few years ago, I could go to Taco Bell (nasty, I know) and eat for $5-6. Now, for my wife and I and our youngest (17), it’s $30. We are NOT getting a lot or anything extravagant either. My wife and I both get the Mexican Pizza meal and our son usually gets the quesadilla meal. McDonald’s is even higher. There is a very nice steakhouse in Huntsville AL named Connor’s. She and Isl go there and eat off of the lunch menu for almost what we would spend on fast food. Usually under $30.00 if we order water to drink.
Holy Moly Blaster, Friend of mine and his family get off a ship after a 3 day cruise this past monday and calls me up and says how about dinner at the Texas Roadhouse in Boynton Beach Fl. tonight where I havent been there in awhile. I look at the menu and see Chopped steak Road Kill plus
Crusted chicken that I used to eat. I used to pay like 9 bucks in change for each when they had that price. I look at the 2 meals and one went for 17 bucks and the other for around 18 bucks….
Once upon a once when everyone either worked in the fast food industry or know someone who did, the applicant and the hiring boss know the applicant wouldn’t be there after one or two years. We employees got our $1 and change an hour, learned how to do a job, and moved on; so there are now more fast food industry veterans than there are military veterans. Some folks stayed on to become supervisors and managers; with six-figure incomes for regional managers and above.
Somehow self-determination went out the window. The left has taught the young-uns if they get a job, the employer owes them for the rest of their lives. I say if one has peaked after learning how to operate a deep fryer, one has not lived a satisfying life.
Working fast food was never meant to be a career. If that’s all you aspire to do or all you are qualified to do, it’s not the fault of the food industry or the economy. You want a career in fast food? Open a franchise.
Left/libtard progressives have taught young people that personal responsibility is “racist” and effort is bad.
Rosetta did not eat prior to departing from Stately Stone Manor. The only convenient fast food joint was a McDonald’s. Hack ordered a Quarter Pounder. Cost? Just short of $7.50. That was not a Combo Meal, it was just a Quarter Pounder, no fries, no drink. That’s the first time Hack Stone set foot in a McDonald’s in about a decade. Spend an extra $0.25 and go to Five Guys.
Chili’s Big QP Burger w/ fries is $9.99 or so lately… why McD’s then?
Time constraint. Had to be at a particular place by a particular time. If you rank every fast food burger, McDonald’s would have to be at the bottom. The only reason people still go there is that customers are hoping for a fight to breakout that they can record and post online.
“McGunk” sells THE most processed and preservative-laden fast food there is! In one comparison video, a guy sealed up burgers from McGunk, Five guys and another fast food chain for 30 days, the result? The Five Guys burger was completely decomposed, he was gagging while unwrapping it, the other fast food burger had decomposed as well, but the McGunk looked much like the day he bought it!
I thought you went to Waffle House for that?
My grandson is working at $27 an hour as a machinist in Louisiana, mostly on oil related equipment fabrication. He has more than 5 years experience. His Dad is also a machinist with over 30 years of experience at $32 or $37 an hour. Both work with CAD equipment as well as “manual machining tools”.
Flipping burgers does not equate with the skill and dedication of machine work.
Apparently no one can learn some someone else’s past experience.
Didn’t Seattle go through this a few years ago?
I know, I know, “But they didn’t do it right. We’ll get it right this time”. (said every communist ever)
Yet, the California government pay scale starts at $16.90 an hour. They should go ahead and raise that to $30 and hour and then double taxes to pay for it.
California seems to think that McDonalds owners have a 32% net profit margin. This is not true. Corporate does but 95% of the stores are owned by franchise. There the net margin is around 10% on average.
Gunna be dumb, ya better be tough!
wise man once said, “The true minimum rate of pay is $0.00”.
Get some.
Our resident domestic terrorist that lives out West once wrote that California has one of the best economies in the country, and people are blissfully happy to spend $5500.00+ a month for a one bedroom, one bath bungalow, and that everything else in the state is just hunky dory.
What gives? Is this fake news or was the research performed my the Berkeley Research Group, Bureau of Labor Statistics and other groups flawed, or a combination of things?
I’m confused.
/sarc off/
He lives in a parallel universe in his mind where communism/socialism really works fine and every thing in Commiefornia is hunky dory.
IMO he lives in his little cocoon of self-hate that he projects to get himself the attention he craves!
For all the tea in China I never would move to california and live the life of Riley and be in like Flyn.. all his B.S. talk sounds like a broken record and a fine kettle of fish he got the state in.
Let’s all be honest, he’s a bald faced liar, and a complete freaking moron with zero grasp of reality… not much more to say about it..
Surprise, Surprise, Sgt. Carter! Who woulda thunk it? Messing with the law of supply and demand has real economic consequences.
With what is going on right now, this is the shit this “veteran” blog is posting about?
This place has lost the plot and is out of touch, irrelevant, and fading away.
It isn’t just a safe space or echo chamber for a declining few. It is an isolation chamber.
Then take a walk, dickhead.
Don’t let the door hit you in the ass. “Bye”
I bet you hit your head on EVERY branch the day you fell headfirst out of The Tree of Stupid!
‘ever notice how some folks use British English idioms in their attempts to sound intelligent? Lost the plot, queue, spot on, and several others are used by folks who sermonize on how much better they are than the rest us. These folks feel the need to demonstrate they are socially better than the rest.
Stalinist Commissar if you don’t like the conversation, stay out of it.
He can’t write a single word without a thesaurus and dictionary.
You say that like it’s a bad thing. I own and use both.
“Safe space….”
Good one!
Now fuck off
You don’t get to decide the plot, here or anywhere else. If you don’t like it here, you have the freedom to rant elsewhere. We discuss what we want to discuss, we’re all fully capable of following a conversation wherever it leads. Everyone but you. We’re not here for relevance. We don’t always agree, but we’re generally adult enough to respect opposing views and maybe, just maybe, persuade the opposition to adjust their views. Everyone but you. You call it an isolation chamber while you screech your liberal party line, no variation is allowed, no disagreement. You and people like you are the opposite of what makes America great, you stifle opposing viewpoints and espouse a single, narrow political agenda that must be followed. Hey, you go ahead and live in your liberal progressive utopia, I want none of it. We’ve heard your tales of how successful California is and how its economy is booming, how people are lining up to to abusive prices to live there. I’m throwing a bullshit flag on your entire speil, calling you a liar, a fraud, an indoctrinated political stooge, and a useful idiot for those you follow.
Go.
Where is the booming economy in California? Tomorrow I have to go on a errand that must be done in person, I shall drive over 100 miles getting 24.9 miles per gallon at $6.25 a gallon – someone (who wants to) do the math, I’m getting a headache thinking about it.
He who shall not be named reminds me of a CA Gov’t employee who told me how rich I must be because I paid less in taxes than I did the year before. I paid less in taxes because I made fewer dollars. We are not all on the Government payroll; in the private sector some years are better than others.
What she said:
And, as usual, you ignore the elephant in the room and attack US for daring to discuss an issue that we are interested in.
As a Veteran I am more than a man who wants to discuss all things VETERAN. I am a citizen of this country concerned with what’s going on.
Ya know Commisar you gave everyone a happy Easter then you had to add praise be to allah. Why didn’t you leave the allah part out unless you wanted to get everyone cranked up to keep the post going.
“…It isn’t just a safe space or echo chamber for a declining few. It is an isolation chamber.” Yet, here you are…again complaining…participation is NOT mandatory. Here, have a snack of favorite food.
I’m quite sure that there are veterans in California that are affected by what is happening regarding this story and conversation, so,,,,,,,yeah,,,,,,,,,,you’re wrong!,,,, Again!!!!!!
Well….
Commisar does not know me.
Speak of the dipshit.. you really never do tire about being g wrong about everything going, do you?
Yes, indeed:
https://californiaglobe.com/articles/shocking-16000-jobs-lost-due-to-californias-20-fast-food-wage-hike/
Anyone with even a nodding acquaintance with economics knew what was going to happen. The left are trying to control the labor market arbitrarily and are instead killing it.
Pretty much everything the left touches turns to fecal matter.
Like with Obummer…
