Surprise...not!!!
While this talks about fast food chains, there are the little restaurants that were also seriously impacted...
California’s fast food industry shed more than 6,000 jobs after Democratic lawmakers passed a bill mandating a $20 minimum wage for most fast food and counter service restaurants in the state, according to a new analysis of labor data.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data show that between September 2023, when California governor Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 1228, and June 2024, Golden State fast food employment dropped from 570,909 jobs to 564,743. That’s a loss of 6,166 jobs, or 1.1 percent, according to an analysis by the nonprofit Employment Policies Institute.
Full article, HERE from National Review.
I don't believe this takes into account the delivery drivers like the pizza companies and others let go.
Some of the chains closed stores in their entirety, like Inn-n-Out closing the last store in Oakland, but that was also due to crime, but others closed from a few to dozens of stores.
And this doesn't count the small restaurants that have closed their doors, some over 30 years old, because they could not stay in business at $20/hr, especially in San Francisco, LA, and San Diego. I'm sure there were/are others in smaller towns that are doing the same thing, but they don't get the media coverage.
The other thing this is doing is pushing more of the fast food companies to go to 'bots' or 'order screens' so that they can dump employees. Yes, those systems are expensive, but they don't draw a salary, take time off, or fight with other employees/management.
But the ROI on them is fairly quick at $20/hr...
But what is the 'human' toll?
Kids no longer have an entry level job to 'learn' to work. And those 'low income' workers who WOULD take a fast food job to have a job. Where do they go now?
What about the elderly that take those jobs to supplement their social security? What do they do???
I know I don't have any good ideas...
Once you start down the path of setting a minimum wage, there's always an argument to make it higher, no matter what. Why stop at $20/hour? Why not set it at $30, so with a 40 hour week it's about the median income in the US (as per a quick web search). That's only fair, right? Well,but 40 hours is hard so why stop there? Why not, say, $100/hour so everyone can afford to raise a family with two cars and a home and have above the median income? (1) And so forth.
In fact the minimum wage is zero. That's what employees get when the company they work for has to let them go because the service they provide to the company, is no longer worth what the company is forced to pay for it. I saw this play out in person, up close, in the late 90'sa at a friend's repair shop.
(1) No, the math doesn't work on that; not everyone can live in Lake Woebegone. But this is the kind of justification you sometimes hear. Apart from math ... not everyone is going to be able (or willing to put in the effort) to get a house, 0.3 lakeside cabins, 2.3 cars, 1.7 kids and 0.9 dogs, or whatever the averages are.
I know that every time they raise the minimum wage, cost of living increases, eroding the gains I have worked hard for to get to the wage I now earn through raises and self education. I haven’t had a raise in 4 years, but my purchasing power is perhaps 70% of what it was in 2020