this post was submitted on 30 Mar 2024
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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.

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[–] JoMomma@lemm.ee 117 points 5 months ago (2 children)

And the wild thing is that 20$/hr is not enough to live on for most people in most of California

[–] Letstakealook@lemm.ee 30 points 5 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] brbposting@sh.itjust.works 5 points 5 months ago

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

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[–] psycho_driver@lemmy.world 11 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] phoneymouse@lemmy.world 6 points 5 months ago

In some parts of California, making less than $104k as a single person is considered low income.

[–] penquin@lemm.ee 50 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (4 children)

$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 ~~rasing~~ raising their food prices.

[–] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 33 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I feel like the only reason it passed is because it's still not a living wage here. If they pushed for something actually able to afford an individual a life, it would have been shot down.

[–] penquin@lemm.ee 5 points 5 months ago

Honestly, I'll take it. It's better than nothing. Hopefully this will plant a seed when people have a taste of a somewhat better wage and start demanding more. Fuck this slavery we live in called capitalism.

[–] tal@lemmy.today 15 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

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.

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[–] bobs_monkey@lemm.ee 13 points 5 months ago (1 children)

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"

[–] penquin@lemm.ee 6 points 5 months ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] jaybone@lemmy.world 6 points 5 months ago (3 children)

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?

[–] psycho_driver@lemmy.world 7 points 5 months ago

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.

Bitches I can hop into a Cheddars and get a half pound monster that I can barely get into my mouth for $11.

[–] penquin@lemm.ee 5 points 5 months ago

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.

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[–] maynarkh@feddit.nl 42 points 5 months ago (3 children)

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."

[–] sin_free_for_00_days@sopuli.xyz 24 points 5 months ago (4 children)

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.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 13 points 5 months ago

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?!

[–] gedaliyah@lemmy.world 5 points 5 months ago

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 🤔

[–] PatFussy@lemm.ee 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Imagine not having to use illegal immigrants as an option yet you guys would rather pay $.20 less.

[–] nomous@lemmy.world 12 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

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?

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[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 10 points 5 months ago

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!

[–] madcaesar@lemmy.world 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

These numbers are meaningless without average household income figures.

[–] maynarkh@feddit.nl 5 points 5 months ago

As per the CEIC, Denmark has significantly higher incomes on average than the US at large, but still around half of Californian incomes.

(US/DK)

[–] tal@lemmy.today 20 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (5 children)

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.

[–] tsonfeir@lemm.ee 18 points 5 months ago (1 children)

The cell phone thing is for data collection fyi, buzzers are cheap.

[–] tal@lemmy.today 7 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

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.

[–] tsonfeir@lemm.ee 4 points 5 months ago

I’m sure if the data CAN be collected, it is collected. Then sold, and used to track you.

[–] catloaf@lemm.ee 2 points 5 months ago

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/

[–] Ultragigagigantic@lemmy.world 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

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?

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[–] Quill7513@slrpnk.net 15 points 5 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] almar_quigley@lemmy.world 2 points 5 months ago

I had the same thought.

[–] CassowaryTom@lemmy.one 13 points 5 months ago

"Hiking wages" is a hell of a spin, friend. Do you care to defend that position?

[–] Fox@pawb.social 12 points 5 months ago (4 children)

You're going to see a lot fast food places in CA magically transform into bakeries

[–] Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world 7 points 5 months ago

Apparently this is misinformation. Panera will have to pay $20 an hour too.

[–] tal@lemmy.today 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

It had taken many years, but finally the Adkins diet fad would be put to rest.

[–] ABCDE@lemmy.world 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)
[–] tal@lemmy.today 4 points 5 months ago

Ah, yeah, thanks.

[–] Pogogunner@kbin.social 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] admiralteal@kbin.social 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

It's widely reported that Panera does not qualify as a bakery under this law.

[–] Pogogunner@kbin.social 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

https://apnews.com/article/california-governor-newsom-panera-bread-fast-food-faca8695e96b0f3224da2ba6d0657e3b

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.

[–] admiralteal@kbin.social 8 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

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.

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[–] Jimmycakes@lemmy.world 11 points 5 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] Osito@lemmy.world 4 points 5 months ago

Can't let good be the enemy of great

[–] gedaliyah@lemmy.world 7 points 5 months ago (1 children)

This will inevitably drive up the cost so high that Californians will be forced to survive entirely on Panera!

-conservatives, probably.

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