I can't help but think that this is just going to accelerate efforts to automate fast food workers. Then once the technology works well enough to replace expensive labor in California, there'll be very little stopping it from spreading everywhere else, regardless of the minimum wage in other places.
I did a search, and 9% of Californias workforce are undocumented. So you're just likely to see a shift away from the de jure workforce to the de facto workforce, since the costs are lower.
Warehouse workers get paid around the same rates in California yet you don't see automated warehouses. You see things like some goods to person robots and automated sortation and with the big retailers like Amazon, they still throw labor at the issue.
Industry has been trying to push automation with app based ordering(eg: starbucks) even before this change.
Haven’t automated CEOs away yet, so I’m sure these folks are safe for now. CEOs are much more expensive and provide much less value arguably. No CEO has ever served me a meal, for example.
That's just blackmail, like saying you have to legalize prostitution to reduce rape. No. You have to stop exploiting people or be eternally afraid of them, and eternally unable to look in the mirror. That's what needs doing.
It doesn't appear that Flippy has taken off. I spent a bit of time in a fast food kitchen around 20 years ago and it was already pretty automated, but it seems like human hands are quite hard to beat.
If McDonalds is any indication, they’re more interested in stuffing anti patterns and pop-up deals into the kiosk UI to make them meaningful replacements for cashiers
Why would you bother, when the demand for hamburgers that cost 2x as much is going to evaporate sooner than the robots get invented?
Anyway, the restaurant & food business is complicated. Can or will McDonald's serve hard alcohol in a drive-thru? Will immigrant (illegal) labor even afford transportation to cities? If the answer is yes to both questions, then a $20 minimum wage won't matter.
Of course it will. And don’t think the politicians don’t already know this. It’s all part of the plan. Next on the ballot is universal basic income for all who lost their jobs. Voters for life.
automation is expensive and hard to do at scale, and also prone to problems. It also does not replace humans. Self-checkout kiosks have been around for 15+ years but have not replaced cashiers. Many fast food places have self-ordering kiosks but this has not made employees obsolete.
Yep, $20/hr plus benefits means for a 168 hour per week worker, you (as an business owner) need to possibly pay as much as $285K per year to cover a single worker 24 hours per day - even if a robot cost a $1,000,000 it would pay for itself in less than 4 years...Elon Musk (and other robot manufacturers) thanks you for this law.
Why fast food workers specifically? I suppose their jobs is worse than a desk job, or even a retail job, but there are arguably far worse jobs out there (eg. delivery workers, landscapers, or agricultural workers). The article's explanation of "most of the often overlooked workforce are the primary earners for their low-income households" isn't really convincing. Delivery drivers or agricultural workers are probably even easier to overlook than someone you have face to face interaction with, and I don't see any reason why primary earners would prefer fast food jobs over other jobs.
> It also settles — for now, at least — a fight between labor and business groups over how to regulate the industry. In exchange for higher pay, labor unions have dropped their attempt to make fast food corporations liable for the misdeeds of their independent franchise operators in California, an action that could have upended the business model on which the industry is based. The industry, meanwhile, has agreed to pull a referendum related to worker wages off the 2024 ballot.
I'm guessing because Newsom would like his name on the presidential ticket next year and he's in the process of backroom political negotiations "necessary" to shore up that support. The specific mention of union negotiations bolsters this conclusion.
This seems like a very shabby pitch to beleaguered American workers and encodes the sad expectation that people supporting a family of 4 should be doing so on a fast food job and now they can, temporarily, due to a wage hike in an election year.
> Undeterred, labor advocates worked with progressive lawmakers to gather enough votes to pass two more significant pieces of labor legislation. First, AB 102, which was signed into law in July, increased funding for California’s Industrial Welfare Commission (IWC), a long-dormant century-old wage board with the power to set wages, hours, and working conditions by industry. Second, AB 1228, which would have made franchisors jointly liable for labor violations — a long sought-after provision that was taken out of the final version of the FAST Act. According to reports, Governor Newsom led negotiations between industry groups and unions over the summer, and with AB 1228 set to pass this week — the final week of California’s legislative session — industry groups finally caved, agreeing to withdraw the referendum in exchange for a rewritten AB 1228.
> The new bill, which the legislature passed on Thursday, ditches joint franchisor liability entirely and officially repeals AB 257. (As part of the negotiations, legislators also agreed to defund the IWC.) But the bill largely keeps in place the Fast Food Council — with some important changes. First, the government representatives on the Council are reduced to nonvoting members, and the bill adds an independent member of the public who will serve as chairperson, presumably carrying a tiebreaking vote. The Council’s standards would apply to “limited-service” restaurants with over 60 establishments nationwide that share a common brand. But instead of promulgating standards with the force of law, the Council must now submit any standard to the Labor Commissioner, who, upon finding that it is consistent with the Council’s mandate, will then engage in a rulemaking process in accordance with California’s Administrative Procedure Act.
> The bill would set the hourly wage for fast-food workers at $20 effective on April 1, 2024, and the Council may set wages annually thereafter beginning in 2025
If they raised the minimum wage for all workers, it would have a greater destabilizing effect, so they limited it to a smaller group so they could get their message across while minimizing the change they cause.
What a funny set of rules. The law has "an exception for restaurants that make and sell their own bread, like Panera Bread". Time for McDonalds to start making their own bread!
The other weird thing is that Taco Bell has to pay $20/hour, but a random taqueria only has to pay $15.50/hour.
Taco Bell vs taqueria does make sense, IMO. Smaller businesses have less economy of scale, and thus less ability to pay higher wages. Taco Bell, in contrast, has vastly larger scale, and thus the ability to pay workers more. Plus, it gives smaller, local businesses a potential leg up, fostering competition.
So weird. So now a non-fast food entry level job needs to compete with a $20/hr fast food job? It’d be interesting to hear what economists think about how this arbitrary incentive will influence workers.
The biggest losers will be teenagers trying to get their first job. Why would anyone hire that person when there will be adults with job experience applying for the same pay. People get triggered when you say these are jobs for kids, but some jobs do need to be for them so they can earn money in high school/college and have something on a resume to prove they showed up everyday.
Recently my son and I were at the mall and decided to grab dinner at a popular ramen spot. They had replaced the hostess with an iPad and a waitlist app. Ugh, I thought, but fine. I can type my name and the number 2 on an app just as easily as letting someone write it down.
Except it wasn't as easy. The iPad first demanded that I make an account with the waitlist app service. I could do it on their iPad but it encouraged me to download an app on my own device instead. There was no “no thank you, just get me a table please” option.
We noped out of there pretty quick and even avoided it the next visit to the mall. I don’t know what kind of money they’re saving by switching to this system, but they’ve definitely lost a $60/visit customer who would probably stop in 3-4x per year.
> The new minimum wage for fast food workers will apply to restaurants with at least 60 locations nationwide, with an exception for restaurants that make and sell their own bread, like Panera Bread.
The exception for small restaurants makes sense, but does anyone have any idea what the bread exception is all about? How many loaves a day does a restaurant have to make in order to qualify for the exemption?
I don't think this is the gotchya or insight porn you think it is.
For starters it's nonsensical.
Don't get me started with the jargon. "Economic revenue?" "Illegal?"
While I don't think you deserve to get downvoted for such nonsense, because maybe it is interesting for someone to explore the premise of what you're actually saying, even if you are saying it extremely poorly, I am at least trying to explain for you personally why a normal person will read this and think, "What is this guy talking about?"
> This law now makes it illegal for anyone that can only provide $19/hour of economic revenue from working at a fast food restaurant.
No, it doesn’t.
It makes it less likely that they would be employed to, but there is no law against employing people at an economic loss, and employers often do this (though they don’t tend to continue doing it when they realize that they are; but that’s their choice, not a legal mandate.)
The argument assumes (as naive economic arguments often do) perfect information on the part of all participants (particularly, that employers know both the maximum economic utility an employee will provide and the effect of wage on their productivity without error), which while a standard component of rational choice theory is also a component that is known not to match the real world at all, being wildly wrong for many purposes.
Good for them but inflation has already hit fast food hard enough that it no longer qualifies as cheap enough relative to other food options to be worth the lower quality.
One of my fantasies is becoming elected president and creating a constitutional amendment against minimum wage.
It is truly one of the most egregious and inhuman concoctions of modern collectivism.
No government or king should have that kind of power over its people. You are dictating by fiat that there not be any jobs below a certain price/threshold.
You are de-facto sentencing all the people below a certain IQ, skill, competence, age, experience etc to be permanently subjugated to government handouts or destitution.
You are eliminating the concept of teenage labor and apprenticeships (almost) entirely. Why would I hire an inexperienced guy for a job if I have to pay him the same as a normal guy.
Same goes for kids, why would I hire kids? This is used to be a crucial pillar of society. Not because the evil capitalist bakery could exploit kids or because they kids need the money. Its a crucial integration point.
The idea that you completely shield kids from society until after college is a crime against humanity.
Do you have any idea how important it is to be given responsibility, work hard and enjoy the fruits of your own labour at a very young age. Even I can't fully grasp the consequences of depriving this from our kids.
This is just the beginning what about low iq people? I mean people that have IQs so low that they can't even pass the military test. Something like 5% of the population falls in this category. Should the be deprived of what ever dignity they have left and live the remainder of the lives as a federal benefactor. Same goes for a huge chunk of disabled people..
There are so many other examples I haven't even though of yet and thats exactly the problem with you collectivists. You guys think you have it all figured out and you can easily restructure the millennia old experiment of civilisation itself from the top down.
I completely understand your point of view, but there is another way of looking at it.
Imagine a world with no minimum wage. Imagine you work all day in the fields picking fruit, backbreaking, in the hot sun. Imagine you get paid not much for this. Everything else still costs the same as it does now, you just don't get paid enough to have a car, or a house, or even make electricity bills each month. You get two jobs. Even three. You still barely make ends meet working 100 hours a week.
Is that a good life? Is that a life you want to live? Is that a life you want your kids, friends and neighbours to live?
Minimum wage is not about a government or king setting a bar that there not be any jobs below a certain price/threshold.
It is about a government (or king) setting a bar saying "for people live a decent life in this society, they must earn x dollars per hour. Paying them less than that is closer to slavery than a successful society, and we want to treat people humanely and give them a chance at a decent life with running water and hot showers."
(FWIW, Government (or king) needs to do this because otherwise employers would just pay the least they could possibly get away with so they can maximize profits)
If you're against a decent minimum wage, you're saying you're perfectly happy for your family, friends, kids & neighbours in your society to live in squalor and have a horrendously bad quality of life. Forever.
> One of my fantasies is becoming elected president and creating a constitutional amendment against minimum wage.
The president really doesn't have anything to do with the constitutional amendment process. It's a legislative process, so congress and senate; plus the legislatures of the states.
This is like when someone wants to be mayor to fix the schools. In most places I'm aware of, schools are governed by school districts and school districts are supervised by the state department of education and the county board or supervisors for the counties they operate in, and city government has nothing to do with their operation, but still mayors want to fix schools.
Anyway, federal minimum wage is much lower than minimum wages in states with their own rules. If it makes life dramatically better to not have one, companies and people would flock to states without. If it makes things dramatically better to have one, companies and people would flock to states with one. Seems like it's not a major driver of life being better or worse.
> One of my fantasies is becoming elected president and creating a constitutional amendment against minimum wage.
The President is the single weakest elected official at the federal level (and weaker than many at the state level) in terms of a Constitutional amendment, having no role at all in proposing or ratifying them, so its a silly fantasy for reasons beyond the viability of such an amendment itself.
Can anyone point me to any broad research or economic analysis that shows that minimum wage laws do anything to help those with low skill in the labor market? The economic consensus and data evidence I find is that it basically does nothing in the medium term, because the market just inflated to adjust, and pushes people out of the workforce or into the black market at the margins.
I’m liberal enough to be open to the idea, but it seems like the least likely of left wing economic policies to actually improve the quality of life of low skill workers.
[+] [-] bhaney|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] LAC-Tech|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] adrr|2 years ago|reply
Industry has been trying to push automation with app based ordering(eg: starbucks) even before this change.
https://www.indeed.com/q-amazon-warehouse-l-los-angeles,-ca-...
[+] [-] toomuchtodo|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hellojesus|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] johnnyworker|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hotpotamus|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] georgeburdell|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] doctorpangloss|2 years ago|reply
Anyway, the restaurant & food business is complicated. Can or will McDonald's serve hard alcohol in a drive-thru? Will immigrant (illegal) labor even afford transportation to cities? If the answer is yes to both questions, then a $20 minimum wage won't matter.
[+] [-] mensetmanusman|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lefstathiou|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|2 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] unknown|2 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] unknown|2 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] paulpauper|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ejb999|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gruez|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] neilv|2 years ago|reply
> It also settles — for now, at least — a fight between labor and business groups over how to regulate the industry. In exchange for higher pay, labor unions have dropped their attempt to make fast food corporations liable for the misdeeds of their independent franchise operators in California, an action that could have upended the business model on which the industry is based. The industry, meanwhile, has agreed to pull a referendum related to worker wages off the 2024 ballot.
[+] [-] akira2501|2 years ago|reply
This seems like a very shabby pitch to beleaguered American workers and encodes the sad expectation that people supporting a family of 4 should be doing so on a fast food job and now they can, temporarily, due to a wage hike in an election year.
A boring dystopia, indeed.
[+] [-] fdr|2 years ago|reply
https://onlabor.org/california-fast-food-workers-secure-big-...
> Undeterred, labor advocates worked with progressive lawmakers to gather enough votes to pass two more significant pieces of labor legislation. First, AB 102, which was signed into law in July, increased funding for California’s Industrial Welfare Commission (IWC), a long-dormant century-old wage board with the power to set wages, hours, and working conditions by industry. Second, AB 1228, which would have made franchisors jointly liable for labor violations — a long sought-after provision that was taken out of the final version of the FAST Act. According to reports, Governor Newsom led negotiations between industry groups and unions over the summer, and with AB 1228 set to pass this week — the final week of California’s legislative session — industry groups finally caved, agreeing to withdraw the referendum in exchange for a rewritten AB 1228.
> The new bill, which the legislature passed on Thursday, ditches joint franchisor liability entirely and officially repeals AB 257. (As part of the negotiations, legislators also agreed to defund the IWC.) But the bill largely keeps in place the Fast Food Council — with some important changes. First, the government representatives on the Council are reduced to nonvoting members, and the bill adds an independent member of the public who will serve as chairperson, presumably carrying a tiebreaking vote. The Council’s standards would apply to “limited-service” restaurants with over 60 establishments nationwide that share a common brand. But instead of promulgating standards with the force of law, the Council must now submit any standard to the Labor Commissioner, who, upon finding that it is consistent with the Council’s mandate, will then engage in a rulemaking process in accordance with California’s Administrative Procedure Act.
> The bill would set the hourly wage for fast-food workers at $20 effective on April 1, 2024, and the Council may set wages annually thereafter beginning in 2025
[+] [-] mech765|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] lacker|2 years ago|reply
The other weird thing is that Taco Bell has to pay $20/hour, but a random taqueria only has to pay $15.50/hour.
[+] [-] OkayPhysicist|2 years ago|reply
The bread thing definitely reeks of corruption.
[+] [-] pokstad|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] edgyquant|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] diggum|2 years ago|reply
Except it wasn't as easy. The iPad first demanded that I make an account with the waitlist app service. I could do it on their iPad but it encouraged me to download an app on my own device instead. There was no “no thank you, just get me a table please” option.
We noped out of there pretty quick and even avoided it the next visit to the mall. I don’t know what kind of money they’re saving by switching to this system, but they’ve definitely lost a $60/visit customer who would probably stop in 3-4x per year.
[+] [-] jacamera|2 years ago|reply
The exception for small restaurants makes sense, but does anyone have any idea what the bread exception is all about? How many loaves a day does a restaurant have to make in order to qualify for the exemption?
[+] [-] WirelessGigabit|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] staringback|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] baggy_trough|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hellojesus|2 years ago|reply
This law now makes it illegal for anyone that can only provide $19/hour of economic revenue from working at a fast food restaurant.
[+] [-] doctorpangloss|2 years ago|reply
For starters it's nonsensical.
Don't get me started with the jargon. "Economic revenue?" "Illegal?"
While I don't think you deserve to get downvoted for such nonsense, because maybe it is interesting for someone to explore the premise of what you're actually saying, even if you are saying it extremely poorly, I am at least trying to explain for you personally why a normal person will read this and think, "What is this guy talking about?"
[+] [-] hparadiz|2 years ago|reply
A typical fast food establishment. Say Chikfila will clear 15k of revenue on a typical slow night. On a good night easily 25k.
An 8 hour shift at $20 an hour is $160. You need to have 5 people in the kitchen and 6-7 out front bagging and taking orders. 12*160 = 1920
Typically wages are your most expensive line item.
So essentially everyone on HN is arguing over $500 a night from revenue that is already hitting 80% profit.
If anything the minimum wage should be $30.
It's almost like techies should stay in their lane and stop talking about economics they know nothing about.
[+] [-] dragonwriter|2 years ago|reply
No, it doesn’t.
It makes it less likely that they would be employed to, but there is no law against employing people at an economic loss, and employers often do this (though they don’t tend to continue doing it when they realize that they are; but that’s their choice, not a legal mandate.)
The argument assumes (as naive economic arguments often do) perfect information on the part of all participants (particularly, that employers know both the maximum economic utility an employee will provide and the effect of wage on their productivity without error), which while a standard component of rational choice theory is also a component that is known not to match the real world at all, being wildly wrong for many purposes.
[+] [-] nrb|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] timeon|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gdulli|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yasp|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pc_edwin|2 years ago|reply
It is truly one of the most egregious and inhuman concoctions of modern collectivism.
No government or king should have that kind of power over its people. You are dictating by fiat that there not be any jobs below a certain price/threshold.
You are de-facto sentencing all the people below a certain IQ, skill, competence, age, experience etc to be permanently subjugated to government handouts or destitution.
You are eliminating the concept of teenage labor and apprenticeships (almost) entirely. Why would I hire an inexperienced guy for a job if I have to pay him the same as a normal guy.
Same goes for kids, why would I hire kids? This is used to be a crucial pillar of society. Not because the evil capitalist bakery could exploit kids or because they kids need the money. Its a crucial integration point.
The idea that you completely shield kids from society until after college is a crime against humanity.
Do you have any idea how important it is to be given responsibility, work hard and enjoy the fruits of your own labour at a very young age. Even I can't fully grasp the consequences of depriving this from our kids.
This is just the beginning what about low iq people? I mean people that have IQs so low that they can't even pass the military test. Something like 5% of the population falls in this category. Should the be deprived of what ever dignity they have left and live the remainder of the lives as a federal benefactor. Same goes for a huge chunk of disabled people..
There are so many other examples I haven't even though of yet and thats exactly the problem with you collectivists. You guys think you have it all figured out and you can easily restructure the millennia old experiment of civilisation itself from the top down.
[+] [-] grecy|2 years ago|reply
Imagine a world with no minimum wage. Imagine you work all day in the fields picking fruit, backbreaking, in the hot sun. Imagine you get paid not much for this. Everything else still costs the same as it does now, you just don't get paid enough to have a car, or a house, or even make electricity bills each month. You get two jobs. Even three. You still barely make ends meet working 100 hours a week.
Is that a good life? Is that a life you want to live? Is that a life you want your kids, friends and neighbours to live?
Minimum wage is not about a government or king setting a bar that there not be any jobs below a certain price/threshold.
It is about a government (or king) setting a bar saying "for people live a decent life in this society, they must earn x dollars per hour. Paying them less than that is closer to slavery than a successful society, and we want to treat people humanely and give them a chance at a decent life with running water and hot showers."
(FWIW, Government (or king) needs to do this because otherwise employers would just pay the least they could possibly get away with so they can maximize profits)
If you're against a decent minimum wage, you're saying you're perfectly happy for your family, friends, kids & neighbours in your society to live in squalor and have a horrendously bad quality of life. Forever.
That's not a nice society to live in.
[+] [-] toast0|2 years ago|reply
The president really doesn't have anything to do with the constitutional amendment process. It's a legislative process, so congress and senate; plus the legislatures of the states.
This is like when someone wants to be mayor to fix the schools. In most places I'm aware of, schools are governed by school districts and school districts are supervised by the state department of education and the county board or supervisors for the counties they operate in, and city government has nothing to do with their operation, but still mayors want to fix schools.
Anyway, federal minimum wage is much lower than minimum wages in states with their own rules. If it makes life dramatically better to not have one, companies and people would flock to states without. If it makes things dramatically better to have one, companies and people would flock to states with one. Seems like it's not a major driver of life being better or worse.
[+] [-] dragonwriter|2 years ago|reply
The President is the single weakest elected official at the federal level (and weaker than many at the state level) in terms of a Constitutional amendment, having no role at all in proposing or ratifying them, so its a silly fantasy for reasons beyond the viability of such an amendment itself.
[+] [-] timeon|2 years ago|reply
You hire people not because of skill but the fact that they can be exploited or not?
[+] [-] paulddraper|2 years ago|reply
People don't like facts, they like belief.
They want to believe that everyone is worth $30/hour.
[+] [-] hparadiz|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] matthewfelgate|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] HEmanZ|2 years ago|reply
I’m liberal enough to be open to the idea, but it seems like the least likely of left wing economic policies to actually improve the quality of life of low skill workers.
[+] [-] abtinf|2 years ago|reply