It was bound to happen. Less than a month after the $20-an-hour fast-food restaurant minimum wage kicked in, activists are demanding that all other minimum-wage workers, who got a bump to $16 an hour on Jan. 1, which will be elevated to $18 an hour if voters approve November’s Minimum Wage Initiative, get the same rate. Apparently they don’t care that the April 1 increase is, according to the New York Post editorial board, “already a disaster”?
One Fair Wage, headed by a Berkeley crusader, “is demanding that California’s new $20 minimum wage law for fast food workers be extended to all sectors to help working-class people who are struggling with the state’s high cost of living,” Fox Business reports. Bloomberg says the “raise for many restaurant workers sets” a “new benchmark” in the state. CNBC has noted that “other business owners across the state are watching to see whether they will have to raise their own pay to compete.”
So rather than a single sector being pulled down by the burden of artificially higher wages, every business in the state would be subject to increased employment costs.
Nothing contained in this blog is to be construed as necessarily reflecting the views of the Pacific Research Institute or as an attempt to thwart or aid the passage of any legislation.
$20 Minimum Wage for Restaurant Workers is Only the Beginning
Kerry Jackson
It was bound to happen. Less than a month after the $20-an-hour fast-food restaurant minimum wage kicked in, activists are demanding that all other minimum-wage workers, who got a bump to $16 an hour on Jan. 1, which will be elevated to $18 an hour if voters approve November’s Minimum Wage Initiative, get the same rate. Apparently they don’t care that the April 1 increase is, according to the New York Post editorial board, “already a disaster”?
One Fair Wage, headed by a Berkeley crusader, “is demanding that California’s new $20 minimum wage law for fast food workers be extended to all sectors to help working-class people who are struggling with the state’s high cost of living,” Fox Business reports. Bloomberg says the “raise for many restaurant workers sets” a “new benchmark” in the state. CNBC has noted that “other business owners across the state are watching to see whether they will have to raise their own pay to compete.”
So rather than a single sector being pulled down by the burden of artificially higher wages, every business in the state would be subject to increased employment costs.
Click to read the full article in The Economic Standard.
Nothing contained in this blog is to be construed as necessarily reflecting the views of the Pacific Research Institute or as an attempt to thwart or aid the passage of any legislation.