5 days ago • 99%

California’s Fast-Food Minimum Wage Hike Didn’t Cut Jobs or Raise Prices Significantly, Study Reports

la.eater.com California’s Fast-Food Minimum Wage Hike Didn’t Cut Jobs or Raise Prices Significantly, Study Reports

Plus, In-N-Out hacks, Estrano returns, and more

here is a link to the study that the article cites : https://irle.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Sectoral-Wage-Setting-in-California-09-30-2024.pdf

37 comments

The infuriating part about this is that I try showing these things to people who claimed 10 years ago that $15 min wage would lead to $35 BIG MACs.

And whenever I try to show them the results, like this, they reply with "I don't remember saying that...."

Then they wonder why I don't talk to them anymore or consider their opinions on anything.

I knew a person who thought if Hillary became president it would lead to WWIII because women in power would upset the world view of men in charge.

I just looked at him and said "So you don't have a fucking CLUE who's in power in other countries then, and remain willfully ignorant on world views."

Now, everytime I have to be around me, he's trying to tell me how in 5 years the U.S. Dollar won't exist. It will be all crypto, because it's decentralized and has no government overreach. Then he said "you can even get it at 7-11 at their ATM."

I just replied "How do you not get punched more often?"

85
- I just replied "How do you not get punched more often?"
  
  I wonder this daily about people.
  
  23
- Oh I've read about this. There was some sort of longitudinal study about like abortion rights or gay rights or something, and people who had shitty views in the past legitimately could not remember that they used to believe that.
  
  It's all about protecting the ego, I think.
  
  I think it was mentioned in this book https://www.davidmcraney.com/howmindschangehome
  
  9
  
  Gaslighting to protect their ego sounds about right. Funny I still remember all my old cringy positions but they can't seem to bear the damage of admitting they were wrong.
  
  4
- It would be fun for that guy to discover transaction fees and wait times for crypto when he actually tries to pay with it.
  
  15
  
  Some are extremely quick with fees that amount to basically nothing compared to the current fees for card transactions (that are paid by the stores instead of the customers, so they end up being included in the price of what we're buying, it's just not transparent).
  
  Algorand takes something like 4 seconds to execute a transaction and the fees are about a cent, Nano has no fees and transactions take less than a second...
  
  There's a lot to criticize about Cerrito, but on those points, not all cryptos are Bitcoin or Ethereum!
  
  5
- I mean... the fact that the Government cannot really control cryptocurrency is viewed as a downside by quite a large portion of the population.
  
  13
- How do you not get punched more often?
  
  be the change you want to see
  
  6
- Are you living in an asylum, or just in USA?
  Maybe there's something in the water where you live?
  
  PS: The fact that Trump is a presidential candidate, and has a chance of winning, is evidence that USA as a country suffer a serious mental disease.
  The number of politicians in congress that are outright conspiracy theorists and obviously crazy is also evidence for that.
  Crazy is the new normal in USA, and I feel really sorry for all the rational even brilliant Americans that have to live in that environment.
  
  5
  
  Of course some people have mental illnesses, but the badness in politics is largely a result of a corrupt system. We could talk about the electoral college, campaign financing, gerrymandering, capitalism, patriotism, etc., take your pick.
  
  It's not about individual people being morons, although various people are on various topics, including me of course, but rather that we are feeling the effects of systemic problems.
  
  6
My sister in law works high up in corporate for a California fast food chain. They did have to cut some jobs. At corporate. Boo hoo.

48
- Good tell those bums to get a real job.
  
  3
It's almost as if we have this argument every few years for the last two centuries. Minimum wage increases do not increase the price of goods.

72
- And even when they do, it's minimal and the increase is more than offset by the wage increase.
  
  35
- The argument isn't about the facts. It's about "I'm inventing a reason to hate seeing people of low status get more status, because my worth is based on comparing myself to them."
  
  The reason why so many humans hate progress is because they think that it reduces their own standing.
  
  33
- But WaGe-pRiCe sPiRaL!!!
  
  4
Because they already run at minimum staff and charge the most they think you'll pay?

44
- Seriously. Why even bother having two separate windows, if the person taking the order, collecting money, and giving you the order are all the same people?
  
  Also, how is it possible that a high quality pub burger with fries and a coke are cheaper than any meal they offer?
  
  10
  
  Seriously. Still astounds me that most everyone I know orders Domino's in a town full of cheap local places that deliver.
  
  4
I appreciate yet another opportunity to debunk conservative myths. It's a shame that it's still necessary.

23
- You have entire rest of the world, almost 8 billion people outside of US... Yet somehow this is different?
  
  -5
That's so weird. It's almost as if the majority of the money people pay for fast food is going to something other than workers' paychecks. It's also almost as if the price increases from "inflation" were lies because there seems to be plenty of margin.

16
B-b-b-but the armchair common sense economists swore it would! And they use “anyone can see” logic!

31
- Well, given time, prices will move to where the businesses make the most profit. If relationship between price and demand is linear, then an increase in expenses will move the ideal price point by half as much.
  
  1
The people that thought it would raise prices are the same people that either can't read, or would refuse to read anything called a "study".

17
That's because price points exist. People will only pay so much for fast food.

Turns out wage increases don't affect prices, just like the research has shown.

3
Assuming a linear relationship between price and demand, then if you increase the cost of product, the price where the most profit is generated moves by half of this amount.

2
Didn’t fast food prices increase something like 30% though? At least in my area I remember mcchickens being way cheaper a few years ago

-5
- Yes, but that happened way before the minimum wage hike hit, and was not limited to California. So it's unrelated.
  
  26
  
  Ahh. Alright
  
  3
- McDonalds and a lot of the other big chains have went up drastically nationwide. It has nothing to do with the CA wage hike.
  
  15
- Sure, but I think the point is that raising minimum wage didn't cause that. Inflation (read: corporate greed) really harmed grocery, food, etc. prices, especially during the pandemic. It truly became a game of how much can we raise these prices until people consider not paying for it
  
  11
  
  The game is still afoot as far as I can see.
  
  3
  
  I mean, that’s always the game in sales.
  
  1
- Prices went up before anything even was voted on.
  
  6

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