April 1 marked one year since California’s $20 minimum wage went into effect. To lament the consequences the law has brought for Californians, the Employment Policies Institute ran a full-page ad in the California statewide edition of USA Today.
The ad highlights the 16,000 fast food jobs that have been “flushed away” due to the minimum wage law, and the fact that the law has resulted in skyrocketing menu prices as well as numerous business closures. To put it plainly, the law “…stinks for workers. It stinks for business owners. It stinks for consumers.”
Get the full scope of job losses, price hikes, customer traffic slowdowns, restaurant closures, and more in EPI’s latest policy brief, which found:
- California lost 16,000 fast food jobs since the law was signed, including over 14,000 lost since it went into effect in April 2024;
- These job losses represented roughly two-thirds of all fast food job losses nationwide during the same period, and significantly outpaced the rate of losses for California’s total private workforce;
- California fast food restaurant prices increased by as much as 14.5% since the law was signed, doubling the rate of price increases nationwide in fast food restaurants;
- California fast food restaurants saw prices rise 56% faster than California sit-down, full-service restaurants, a gap five times larger than the gap between fast food and full-service restaurants nationwide; and
- Fast food restaurants have seen customer foot traffic decrease following implementation of the law.
Read the policy brief here.