[benbayard]

Is your usual breakfast spot a location with more than 60 locations? The minimum wage increase here only applied to chains with more than 60 locations. A lot of what you're describing is nation-wide. Food is more expensive everywhere. Cost of living in California is up significantly. Rents for restaurants is significantly higher as well (at least anecdotally, my wife's family restaurant has to close because they doubled the rent after their lease was up, I have heard this is incredible common).

This study by UC Berkeley attributed a 3.7% increase in food price because of the minimum wage changes. It's quite likely that food overall getting more expensive is responsible for a lot of what you're seeing.

If we can't afford to pay people in California a wage where they can live here, then maybe the economy overall isn't sustainable? A $20 minimum wage is like $2800 take home per month and in many places that can barely cover rent.

[SideQuark]

Min wage forced on some places forces other companies to compete for workers, so your argument is missing important facts.

[benbayard]

You are correct that I was unable to summarize an incredibly complex tangled web of economics, sociology and politics in a few hundred words on a forum. I don't think any of us can do this. Of course it's an oversimplification. Is the comment I'm replying to also not doing this? Are you also not doing the same thing?

My only point is that this seems like an awful lot of confirmation bias. Something everyone suffers from.

[Hilift]

A better example would be Los Angeles and the new $30 per hour minimum wage for hotel and airport workers. Conceptually it makes sense. The crux of the issue and some opposition is there are more people now who use those jobs for primary income for a family, where in the past it may have been perceived as jobs for supplemental income and no health benefits.

[benbayard]

I'm glad those people are able to now support a family. At least we have that, if nothing else.

[mensetmanusman]

The property tax laws need to force people to maybe not sit in large empty houses.

[anonymousiam]

Why, if you have the money, should you be forced to have roommates or tenants? What sort of freedom is that?

[justinrubek]

This comes across as if you want people to work for your convenience but without paying for it. You are not obligated to the output of other peoples' work. The subway isn't open that early? It wasn't cost effective to pay the people according to that store based on the amount of business they got.

[greedo]

It's been a long time since I worked in the SoCal fast food scene, but it's been decades since it was true that a majority of the workers were students.