PrairiePundit

Red State:  Last September, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law the Fast Food Restaurant Industry Act , which raised the minimum wage for most fast-food workers to $20 per hour. Moreover, the new law “establishes a Fast Food Council … to establish an hourly minimum wage for fast food restaurant employees and develop standards, rules, and regulations for the fast food industry.” Unsurprisingly, this steep hike in the minimum wage for fast-food workers has already produced substantial downstream effects. According to the California Business and Industrial Alliance, there have been around 10,000 fast-food job layoffs in the Golden State since the Fast Food Restaurant Industry Act was signed into law. The National Owners Association , an advocacy group for thousands of fast-food franchises in California, estimates the new law will cost fast-food restaurants in California about $250,000 annually due to the state-imposed minimum wage increases and other regulations. Some compani...

 Red State: This type of story will become increasingly commonplace in the near future now that California’s new onerous minimum wage law for fast food workers took effect Monday. Many will say, “Who cares what happens in Krazy California?” and I will remind you  as I always do  that what starts here more often than not spreads across the country. Especially when we have a Democrat president, as we do now, who drools over Gov. Gavin Newsom’s socialist maneuverings and  tries to copy them  whenever he can. AB 1228,  signed by Newsom in September 2023 , requires a $20 minimum wage for restaurants that have at least 60 locations nationwide—except, inexplicably—those that make and sell their own bread. Um, what? Already, fast food prices are skyrocketing around the Golden State, workers are being laid off, and locations are being closed. All in the name of helping the little guy. Who could have predicted: Like AB5, CA's Fast-Food Minimum Wage Hike Results in La...

 Money Wise: 'Every single restaurant will close overnight': Celebrity chef blasts California politician's $50 minimum wage proposal, calls state 'the worst run' in the country. Do you agree? Restaurants would not be the only businesses that would fail with a $50 minimum wage. 

 I&I: The Golden State’s leftist Democrat-dominated legislature loves to grandstand as a champion of the downtrodden and the working poor, even if the policies they enact end up hurting those people the most. That’s certainly the case with the state’s minimum wage hike, which is set to hit in 2024. The state will raise its overall mandated minimum-wage rate from $16 an hour to $16.50 an hour overall, starting in 2024. But some industries will get an even bigger wage shock: fast-food minimum wages go up to $20 an hour starting in April. Meanwhile, workers in the health care industry will see their minimum wage rise to $18, $21 or $23 an hour, depending on the job. It’s about time, you say? Let’s start by saying we’re not against anyone getting a raise. But raises should come from the companies themselves, not from government decrees. As study after study in recent years show, government-mandated minimum wage hikes usually hurt those they’re meant to help. It’s an irony that se...

  Rob Crilly: Biden's bullish rhetoric clashes with reality as messaging comes unmoored   A president who says he will put science first until unions object to plans to reopen schools. An administration that is on a “war-like” footing until it wants a weekend off. And a White House that promised a bipartisan COVID-19 relief package before  giving up on Republican support. ... This is just the beginning of the great unraveling of the myth perpetrated by the Democrats and their media cohorts.  See, also: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Has Buyer's Remorse After Helping to 'Fortify' the Election  ... Yet the U.S. Chamber of Commerce partnered with these progressive groups and somehow expected Biden would not implement those groups’ radical wish list. The proposed energy policies alone should have scared them, but they didn’t. Now, with  Biden’s express endorsement of a $15/hour minimum wage , the Chamber has objections.... ... The Chamber was part of the conspi...

  Business Insider: Pelosi says a $15 minimum wage increase will be included in the House's pandemic relief package The mandate will hurt small business and minorities while increasing the US deficit. In some states it will double the current minimum wage.

 Washington Examiner: As President Biden and Democrats kept pushing the absurd idea of increasing the minimum wage during a pandemic that has already adversely affected the service industry, the Congressional Budget Office on Monday  delivered a needed reality check . Democrats led by Biden would more than double the federal minimum wage from its current $7.25 per hour to $15 per hour between now and 2025. Conceptually, allowing politicians to determine the floor at which individuals must be paid, rather than the fair value determined by market forces, is a bad idea. But at a time when so many people are already out of work, it is a catastrophe. Such a dramatic increase would lead to massive job losses and higher costs to consumers. The CBO has provided some sobering estimates to support this view. Were Democrats to succeed in passing their minimum wage hike, which would likely require an extraordinary expansion of the Senate budget reconciliation power, it would reduce employ...

  Washington Post: Kroger is closing stores rather than giving workers extra $4 in pandemic pay Ordering businesses to operate at a loss is not a winning idea .  Some stores have thin profit margins and forcing them to pay more is a lose-lose proposition.  If Democrats force a $15 minimum wage across the country more people will lose jobs.

 Foundation for Economic Education: Puerto Rico has had a long history of being harmed by Washington overreach . The island was once home to a thriving needlework industry until the federal minimum wage destroyed its competitive advantage. The same unintended consequence happened again in 1974 when increases in the minimum wage cut 32 percent of low wage jobs and triggered a mass migration off the island. Now history threatens to repeat itself once more as the Biden administration tries to more than double the federal minimum wage to $15/hour . Such an act would deal another blow to the struggling island—and many other parts of the United States. By forcing up the cost of employment the minimum wage hurts the very people it tries to assist, and creates the real risk of losing their job altogether . Adjusting this single minimum wage by median household income gives us an idea of how widespread the disemployment effect in different states would be and illustrates why this One Best...

  Washington Free Beacon: 30 Years of Research Rebut Biden’s Minimum-Wage Agenda   New study shows wage hike will kill jobs Small business cash flow determines the wages that can be paid and not the politicians who are generous with other people's money. 

  Washington Free Beacon: Report: Biden Economic Policy Will Kill Two Million Jobs $15 minimum wage hike would slash jobs from women, minorities This is another example of Democrats' lack of understanding of basic economics. 

NY Times: The Minimum Wage Is Rising, but These Workers Are Being Left Behind There is a class of worker, mostly those who get tips, whose earnings floor has not been increased since 1991. They have been hurt more by the raising of the minimum wage because it has caused many of them to be laid off. And, as prices increase the amount of the tip goes up so it is not particularly relevant that the floor on earnings has not gone up.  If you are getting 20 percent of the price of the service you get a raise with the increase in the price.  People who depend on tips prefer that to losing the job because the government increases the floor cost of the business.

Legal Insurrection: This appears to be happening mainly in cities governed by liberals who do not understand the business dynamic they are ruining.  Unions have also been pushing these counterproductive wage laws because it forces raises on jobs for their members too.

NY Post: Big Apple restaurants are feeling the heat from minimum-wage hikes, cutting staff hours and even closing kitchens as they struggle to shoulder the extra payroll costs. Gabriela’s Restaurant and Tequila Bar, a margarita and taco staple on the Upper West Side for the past 25 years, is closing at the end of September — and it has been a long, painful road downhill, according to its mom-and-pop owners. Since the $15-an-hour minimum wage hit New York City in December, Liz and Nat Milner say, they’ve been forced to slash their full- and part-time staff to 45 people from 60. Quality has suffered, they admit, and customers have noticed: They’re not coming in like they used to, and when they do, they’re spending less. “We started by having to let go of the ladies who hand-made our tortillas. It’s certainly better when you can make your tortillas fresh for every taco,” Nat Milner said. “It made sense at $8 an hour but not at $15.” Gabriela’s was then forced to lay off “two ove...

Legal Insurrection: California’s Minimum Wage Rules Kill State’s Largest Recycling Center Hundreds of jobs were lost and the state lost the ability to meet its recycling goals.

CNBC: The House passed a bill Thursday to hike the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour in a win for liberal activists who have long pushed to give low-wage workers a raise. The Democratic-held chamber passed the plan in a 231-199 vote. Six Democrats opposed it, while three Republicans supported it. The measure would gradually hike the U.S. pay floor to $15 by 2025, then index further hikes to median wage growth. It would also phase out lower minimum wage paid to tipped workers. House Democrats view the legislation as a core piece of their agenda to boost pay and economic growth. As President Donald Trump runs for reelection in 2020, the party argues strong economic growth and a roaring stock market have not done enough to lift the workers who most need relief. ... It would do the opposite of their stated intentions.  In every city where the Democrats have imposed this increase in the minimum wage, it has killed jobs and businesses.  It has been particularly devastat...

Thomas Lifson: Citing higher minimum wages in Seattle, Portland, and SF, West Coast restaurant chain files for bankruptcy They are doing workers no favors.  The best way to increase wages is by expanding the economy.  In West Texas where the shale boom is taking place so many people were leaving the wait staffs to take jobs in the oil fields that wages increased dramatically and the businesses could afford it because the oil workers were flooding their establishments.

Washington Post: Workers in mostly red states aren’t seeing minimum-wage hikes Alabama, Florida, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri and Wisconsin have all invalidated raises passed by cities, costing nearly 350,000 workers a total of $1.5 billion per year, a study finds. In jurisdictions where the minimum wage has been raised people are losing jobs or working hours.  The minimum wage increases are a bad policy which harms entry-level workers.   It just shows that red states have smarter leaders than blue states which are losing population.

CNS News: Rep. Omar Laments Low Pay of McDonald's Employees Who Work ’40 Hours a Day’ In another gaffe, she insisted on full back pay for TSA agents at the same time who favored abolishing the Department of Homeland Security in which they work.   Besides being a Muslim religious bigot she is just not too smart.

Bill McMorris: Study: Dem Wage Hike Will Cut 2 Million Jobs $15 minimum wage would cut entry-level jobs The results in cities and states that have imposed the increased minimum wage are that jobs are lost and workers are seeing their overall paychecks reduced because of reduced hours.