Starting Monday, most California fast-food workers will earn at least $20 an hour — the highest minimum wage across the U.S. restaurant industry. Yet the pay hike is sparking furious debate, with some restaurant owners warning of job losses and higher prices for customers, while labor advocates tout the benefits of higher wages.
The new law, signed by Governor Gavin Newsom last fall, takes effect on April 1, requiring that fast-food chains with at least 60 locations nationwide pay workers at least $20 an hour. The means the state’s 553,000 fast-food workers will earn more than the state’s $16 minimum wage for all other industries.
The new baseline wage comes as the fast-food industry is seeing booming earnings, with big chains like McDonald’s enjoying strong revenue growth and wider profit margins in recent years. That’s partly due to menu prices that have far outpaced inflation, with fast-food costs surging 47% over the past decade, compared with an average of 29% for all other prices, according to a new analysis from the Roosevelt Institute, a nonpartisan think tank.
And the wild thing is that 20$/hr is not enough to live on for most people in most of California
Idk how anyone besides the wealthy survives in California. Someone sent me a job in my field starting at 150k in San Francisco. On paper, it would be really great money for what I do, but the cost of living would make it a poverty wage. I’m not interested in having 6 roommates at this point in my life.
100k w/four housemates is enough to eat, have fun, and save a wee bit in SF!
:) heh yeah wildly expensive. No accident the place is in high demand though 🌁🌉* And that’s in spite of parts of downtown feeling like they must be the fentanyl capital of the world. Western half of the city lives a different life than those stuck in e.g. the Tenderloin, very sad whether working class or homeless.
*emoji depict the Golden Gate Bridge at least on Apple devices
You should have taken it. You don’t need to live in SF. Plus lots of those jobs are work from home at least part of the time.
You can rent for a few years and then get a better job at a higher level. It’s worth it to set a new pay level that all other jobs have to beat.
I live in flyover country and I’m not sure that’s enough here anymore. My wife and I have been making over six figures (combined) for eight years now and things are a bit tight for our family of four.
One of our local stations news teams did a wage study and found that to “be able to live comfortably” a family of four needs to make $186,000.
In some parts of California, making less than $104k as a single person is considered low income.
$20 is not even a living wage for a family. And in California, that’s basically still a starvation wage. Better than nothing I guess. There should be a law along with this wage increase that prohibits these fuckers from
rasingraising their food prices.There should be a law along with this wage increase that prohibits these fuckers from rasing their food prices.
Most of the high cost of living in California is due to very high housing prices. It’s not food.
https://www.salary.com/tools/cost-of-living-calculator/los-angeles-ca-expense-details
Energy is also high, but one – hopefully – isn’t spending as much on energy as housing.
If one wants to reduce the cost of living in California, what one wants to do is reduce barriers to building more housing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YIMBY_movement
The YIMBY movement has been particularly strong in California, a state experiencing a substantial housing shortage crisis. Since 2017, YIMBY groups in California have pressured California state and its localities to pass laws to expedite housing construction, follow their own zoning laws, and reduce the stringency of zoning regulations. YIMBY activists have also been active in helping to enforce state law on housing by bringing law-breaking cities to the attention of authorities.
Things have been slowly moving on this front.
In general, there is stronger local opposition to new housing construction locally than at a high level. Like, people are okay with housing in abstract, but don’t want riff-raff moving into the neighborhood, or don’t want the nice field near them to be built on or don’t want higher-density housing to keep their view of the sky as broad as possible or whatever. So California’s had legislative work recently at the state level in disallowing localities from blocking new housing construction. Hopefully, it’ll get the rate of construction moving.
Not just reduce the barrier but also stop these companies form buying up all the houses. If someone can dictate how much rent we pay then the problem will never truly be solved. These companies can afford to just sit on an empty property while it just gains value over time, they don’t have an incentive to reduce prices to get people in. The incentives should be punishments not gains for these companies. It’s the only real way to fix stuff.
Luckily McDs is starting to feel the pinch from people forgoing their crap food for being too expensive. It would seem they’re starting to realize that people do have a limit on what they’ll spend on their “food”
Our government is so god damn weak. Corporations run this country with a jungle grip. Some people rag on Europe a lot, but they sure have much better governments than us by a long shot.
For now. All capitalism trends towards end stage. Reforms are just delay the inevitable, not prevent it entirely.
Think back to the 20th century labor movement. Could in your wildest dreams imagine such a movement occurring this day and age? But let’s just pretend everything goes perfect and we get a other similar labor movement right now. The best we can hope for is a temporary cease fire in the class war while the 1% works its way back into positions of power.
All the blood sweat and tears shed making the new deal were wasted. Flushed down the drain because they negotiated with financial terrorists. like trying to make peace with russia…
Capitalism always leads to the same dead end. Let’s try out something new. Maybe we haven’t even created the next way to live our lives yet? How could we find such a thing if we keep going around in a circle in this sarlac pit?
I went into McDonald’s a couple months ago on a rare craving whim. A Big Mac was almost $7.
If I’m going to pay $7 I’d rather go to Jack in the box or Carl’s Jr and get a better quality burger. I don’t see how the market allows them to get away with this. Who the fuck is paying this at McDonald’s?
Yeah the last couple of times I’ve been in a pinch and went through a fast food place for a basic burger value meal it was $11-$12, and I got the usual half-assed burger slopped together without the proper amount of toppings.
removed I can hop into a Cheddars and get a half pound monster that I can barely get into my mouth for $11.
Don’t give these assholes your money. Make your own food. That way you save a ton of money and not support these fuckers. Society will still thrive without shitdonald and the likes if they disappear.
Western Bacon Cheeseburger combo in the Los Angeles area now…
From Snopes, just thought it is relevant.
McDonald’s workers in Denmark truly make more than $20 an hour. It’s worth repeating, however, that these wages were not determined by the country’s minimum wage. In fact, Denmark does not have a nationwide minimum wage. Rather, the country has a robust union presence and issues such as wages and vacation time are often decided via collective bargaining.
Another point that is often raised when comparing McDonald’s wages in Denmark vs. the United States is how much these wages impact menu prices. While we can’t provide any exact figures here, we can say that the change in price isn’t extreme. A review by The New York Times, for instance, found that Big Macs cost “about 27 cents more on average in Denmark than in the United States.” But according to the “Big Mac Index” from the Economist, a Big Mac costs 76 cents less in “Denmark (US $4.90) than in the United States (US$5.66) at market exchange rates.”
I remember reading an article about strawberry pickers out here in California about 25 years ago. The math in the article said they could triple the pay of the pickers, and it would add a similar amount (around $0.20) per carton at retail. But we can’t do that for some fucking reason.
Just think… if all the produce we bought was 20 cents more at retail, we’d have to spend… well I don’t know exactly, but at least an additional $3. Can anyone afford that?!
That math is just a little lie that makes up a part of the Big Lie. The truth is that increasing workers’ wages does not tend to lead to price inflation in most markets. It simply reduces profits and C-level bonuses.
Funny how nobody ever talks about the labor cost of CEO pay driving up prices 🤔
Imagine not having to use illegal immigrants as an option yet you guys would rather pay $.20 less.
By “you guys” you mean the executives at Dole and Delmonte that would rather pocket the $0.20 per pint themselves than pay a fair wage, right?
My assumption is that it’s only $0.20 because the assumption is that the C-suite of whoever is selling the strawberries is expected to lower their profit margins.
And we know that’s never going to happen.
27 cents more for a Big Mac? That’s outrageous! I won’t pay it! Bring those guys back down to $7.25 an hour so I can save a quarter and two pennies when I buy fat and salt!
These numbers are meaningless without average household income figures.
In California, near me, the closest McDonalds, Panera’s, and Togo’s have adopted kiosk-based ordering, which takes the human out of the ordering loop. None are pure kiosk (at least not yet).
The Panera’s also had orders dropped off at tables, and appears to have ended that practice; they also removed the numbered buzzers. Now they’ll notify a cell phone if a number was entered at the kiosk, and if not, call the name on the receipt from the pickup counter.
EDIT: Actually, as a result of this conversation, I went over to the Togo’s in question, where the manager – who I think, from hearing her talk to people during some remodeling work, is also the owner of this particular franchise location – was working the counter along with some other employees. She confirmed that Togo’s was gonna see the minimum wage increase, sounded worried about what it was gonna do to costs. Then immediately the other guy waiting at the pick-up counter started complaining about California housing costs and both of the two started complaining to each other about inflation.
The cell phone thing is for data collection fyi, buzzers are cheap.
Yeah, I don’t want to be in their database so opt to have my name called, but often miss them calling from the pickup counter now. It is definitely obnoxious.
Come to think of it, I wonder if anyone has built a database linking phone numbers to Bluetooth UUIDs? I assume that software on a cell phone can obtain the phone number and the Bluetooth UUID and the full name of the user, so probably free-to-play games and the like will sell it.
And if that’s the case, if you correlate with that data, you can identify customers from the Bluetooth UUIDs.
I’m sure if the data CAN be collected, it is collected. Then sold, and used to track you.
Some places, like big box stores, do track the cell phones of people in the store. And you can bet that they correlate that with all the other info on you that they have.
https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/stores-spy-on-customers-by-tracking-cell-phones/
In California, near me, the closest McDonalds, Panera’s, and Togo’s have adopted kiosk-based ordering, which takes the human out of the ordering loop. None are pure kiosk (at least not yet).
According to business leaders, this should have lowered the prices heavily, since they say labor costs is such a huge part of the final price right?
So… did the prices go down?
This automation and these kiosks aren’t the result of increased wages as these are things a business would install anyway because it’s just a single, fixed, upfront cost and not something the requires scheduling, biweekly paychecks, health insurance, training, etc. We’re setting more of them now because the technology has gotten better and cheaper.
Sorry to hear that Togo’s has been enshittified. There was one near my studio in Burbank back when I lived in L.A. and I went there all the time. (I got to eat lunch there with Jeffrey Combs! Worship me, pigs!)
My go-to was an egg salad hero with tabbouleh on it.
Man that place was awesome. I really miss it. That sucks to hear.
Sorry to hear that Togo’s has been enshittified.
I think that Doctorow was referring not to just something undesirable happening at a company with that, but specifically the transition of a consumer-facing Internet company from the growth phase to the monetization phase.
I don’t think that Togo’s was trying to rapidly grow while losing money and then shifted to try to make money, a la what he was talking about. I would guess that there are one of three things going on:
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They (and other food places) have minimum-wage labor as a major chunk of their costs, and so they’re preparing for the imminent increase by cutting how much labor they need and automating what they can. My guess is that this is probably the dominant factor, given the change that California is about to see.
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There’s been a lot of inflation. My understanding is that wages tend to be more sticky than inflation – this guy who started chatting with me at the counter in my above comment said that he only saw a 5% raise last time around, whereas last year saw something like 10% inflation – so I’m guessing that if inflation spikes, you tend to have a period where people are spending less, and it may be that prepared food is an easy thing to reduce spending on. That’d mean that they’d have a rough time in an inflationary environment. Although…hmm. If it’s an inexpensive restaurant, it might benefit, because one might see more people shift from more-expensive options to inexpensive options. Giffen goods aren’t exactly the same thing, but work on that sort of principle – an increase in cost can increase consumption because of substitution effect for a more-expensive alternative dominating.
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Automation has just been getting cheaper/better, and has finally reached the point of working well enough that it can replace human workers at point-of-sale. I remember when supermarket automated checkouts were just a complete disaster, took way longer to slog through than a human checker. Now, while I’ll take a human checker if available, I don’t avoid automated checkouts like the plague any more.
My go-to was an egg salad hero with tabbouleh on it.
Thanks for the recommendation. I’ll already grabbed my food this time, but give it a shot next time around.
EDIT: Nah, apparently it’s gone. I asked a worker, and they said that they did offer it at one point, but egg salad was discontinued. Ah, well. I guess it might relate to the very-elevated prices for eggs during the avian flu problems recently. Maybe if egg prices come back down…
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Love that they inserted “hike” which in terms of costs is a slur word. They’re making it sound like requiring people be paid a fair wage for the value of their labor is an impending crisis
I had the same thought.
“Hiking wages” is a hell of a spin, friend. Do you care to defend that position?
You’re going to see a lot fast food places in CA magically transform into bakeries
Apparently this is misinformation. Panera will have to pay $20 an hour too.
It had taken many years, but finally the Adkins diet fad would be put to rest.
Atkins.
Ah, yeah, thanks.
That exception only applies to bakeries created before the law was passed - still helps Gavin Newsome’s donor without allowing other to take advantage of the political exception.
It’s widely reported that Panera does not qualify as a bakery under this law.
This is less clear cut than I thought, but I think there are arguments to both sides as to whether Panera Bread would be exempt from this law.
No, it is not “less clear cut” than you thought and there is not an argument on both sides.
On one side you have the guy who actually owns the Paneras in question, saying they would not even be attempting to use this exemption because it does not apply to them.
On the other side, you have the Newsom administration and the California labor agency BOTH saying that Panera could not benefit from this exemption because it does not apply to them.
That’s the only “side”.
This is to whom the “bakery exception” applies:
Restaurants that operate a bakery that “produces” and sells “bread” as a as of September 15, 2023, and continue to do so are exempt from the new law.
“Bread” is defined as a single unit item that weighs at least ½ pound after cooling and must be sold as a stand-alone item.
The following types of fast food restaurants do not come under the exemption:
- Restaurants that sell bread only as part of a sandwich or hamburger, but not as a stand-alone menu item;
- Restaurants that sell stand-alone items weighing less than one-half pound after cooling, such as most muffins, croissants, scones, rolls, or buns, but do not sell bread weighing at least one-half pound after cooling; and
- Restaurants that do not “produce” bread on the premises of the restaurant location where customers purchase the bread. Producing bread includes making the dough (typically, flour, water, and yeast) and baking it. Baking pre-made dough, i.e., dough that was mixed or prepared at another location, does not constitute “producing” bread at the establishment where the bread is sold.
This exemption applies only to restaurant establishments that produced and sold bread as stand-alone menu items as of September 15, 2023, and have continued to do so.
This exemption does not require that the restaurant be primarily engaged in the sale of bread as a stand-alone item. The exemption may apply even when the sale of bread as a stand-alone menu item constitutes a small portion of the restaurant’s total food sales.
That third bullet point disqualifies Panera from the exemption, and moreover it seems to be specifically targeted to disqualify a chain faux-bakery like Panera from the exemption. It has been there from the beginning.
The only “side” that is spreading the argument that this was a corrupt political favor is the right wing disinformation campaign using it to attack Newsom specifically and pro-labor policies in general, and those in the media who failed to do basic dilligence to discredit the complete nonsense that this story was.
Even on places that seem as progressive-leaning as lemmy.world, we dance to their tunes.
Righties, being very unpopular when their ideas are presented honestly, are masters of propaganda.
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Maybe they should just try building some dense housing so the people making $20 got some where to live that’s not with 3 other people in a house built for 1
Can’t let good be the enemy of great
This will inevitably drive up the cost so high that Californians will be forced to survive entirely on Panera!
-conservatives, probably.
It won’t do shit since the starting pay is like $20-22 an hour even in the valley.
Unless your restaurant bakes fresh bread. Get ready for TacoBell’s new Doritos Loco Sourdough Baguette.Apparently this is bullshit. Although I would try dorito bread if someone made it.
If Panera doesn’t qualify as a bakery under this law – which it is widely reported that they don’t – Taco Bell certainly doesn’t. This whole meme is likely a right wing misinformation campaign.
https://www.epicurious.com/recipes-menus/doritos-seasoning-recipe-article
How to Make Homemade Doritos Seasoning
- ¼ cup nutritional yeast
- 1 tsp. chipotle chile powder
- 1 tsp. garlic powder
- 1 tsp. onion powder
- ¾ tsp. Diamond Crystal or ½ tsp. Morton kosher salt
- ½ tsp. smoked paprika
- ¼ tsp. MSG
Though if you’re making yeast-based bread, the garlic is gonna have to either be put on the bread’s outside at the end, or you’re gonna have to omit it. Garlic inhibits yeast growth.
Except for Panera who get a cut-out because the CEO is a childhood friend of Gavin Newsom. Like I’ve been saying for years: Democrats are just Republicans draped in a rainbow flag.
No they fucking aren’t.
I thought that got scratched out? Either way yes these shouldn’t have targeted exceptions that don’t pass the smell test.
It didn’t get scratched out. It was never true in the first place. I don’t know why the bakery exemption was in there – apparently no one who isn’t on a confidentiality agreement does – but Panera apparently never would’ve qualified as one under it. The disinfo game from the right on this was on point.
This is misinformation. Panera has to follow the law apparently.
You know you’re not supposed to stick the Q-tip all the way into your ear, right?
