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CA raised fast food min wage to $20 in 2024, so now we have good studies. Seems bad- Low income households spend more of their budget on fast food, the policy taxes most low-income consumers to raise wages for some low-income workers while eliminating jobs for others.

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Alex Tabarrok

@ATabarrok

20h

Excellent review of the CA fast-food minimum wage from @jeffreypclemens and co-authors. marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolu

1:47 PM · Apr 5, 2026

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Nik

@NikMilanovic

19h

Net bad, but not uniformly bad. "In terms of welfare, the bulk of employed workers get an 8% wage increase, a small minority get disemployed." Wage levels aren't binary -- so if you were looking to draw a "what's next" conclusion here, you'd probably say, "lower the fast food

Yeah nothing is uniformly bad or good If the goal is to help poor people on the whole this one is probably bad I don’t understand your what’s next conclusion though- why is the conclusion that fast food workers should have a higher rate than overall min of $16.90?

Fast food is for the poor, that’s for sure. I enjoy it too, but sometimes it feels like going to buy drugs. Almost shameful.

Putting on my statistics shades to protect against the flashing red lights in the conclusions of this article— the Hoover institute paper uses a… let’s say “loose” methodology for estimating the effect of higher wages in CA on employment vs the broader industry and this article

Bad: some people lost jobs Good: some people got raises Bad: consumers paid more for food Good/bad: more automation Seems pretty nuanced. And definitely unavoidable over time. Hard with these big manual wage adjustments.

The most overlooked bad result is the skyrocketing rate of youth unemployment/underemployment that resulted. Teen unemployment was up double digits.

Leaving aside the question of whether minimum wages are a good idea, what is the rationale for different minimum wages by industry?

Anything a low income household, spends their money on will be a higher percentage of their income than the wealthy.

Brandon Bradford

@BrandonLBradfor

17h

Twelve month study where the increase only happened 6 months into it? Mildly misleading. Piece of the puzzle but not the whole thing that's needed to help folks

257

whoasked

@imupstaymad

#1 an increase in fast food price is likely better from a public health perspective #2 other jobs have likely raised pay to compete with fast food (my last job literally did this) #3 the increase was surprisingly low. Looks like you have california derangement syndrome

496

Carol Walsh ^Monterey Bay^

@CarolWalshReal1

Went through a taco bell last week and the ordering was AI!!!!!!! Only a human at the delivery end.

Potentially a correlation story dressed up as causation.

It seemed bad before it was implemented but

@GavinNewsom

is stupid and did it anyway.

Progressives are the champions of pushing policies that backfire and hurt the very people they’re trying to help. Just the latest example of many

332

Bruce Hendrix

@brucedhendrix

That is intended, a feature not a bug. Creates more gov't reliance/dependency among the lower income bracket(s) and helps to stir political agenda(s) of class -based disadvantages.

Wie Dan

@LudditeHacker

Low income households will get much healthier if they can't afford fastfood anymore.

If you go to a retail store nowadays there will be bare minimum staff. No one really there to help you. Only cashiers and maybe 1 person trying ti keep up with stocking the store Just bizarro land compared to when I grew up, people would be asking to help you.

Why haven’t the poor switched their eating habits from fast food to eating at home?

338

@Cincinotus

In N Out was already starting at 21.50 when the law passed. In Los Angeles/San Diego, The Bay, McDonalds was starting at about 19. It only raised wages in the most economically depressed parts of CA, and even then only pushed them up about 15% on average.