California raises min wage for major chain fast food workers to $20 per hour starting early 2024

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njdevilsfan87

njdevilsfan87

Platinum Member
Apr 19, 2007
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Zor Prime said:
One of my homes is in CA where I spend a lot of time. I basically never eat fast food in CA anymore because it currently borders on authentic cuisine restaurant prices.
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In-N-Out for my small family of 3 is less than $20 (we don't get drinks), whereas when we out at a restaurant it's like $60-$80 with tip included.
 
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G

Greenman

Lifer
Oct 15, 1999
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fskimospy said:
A quick google says 20% of McDonalds' costs are labor. If we have a 33% increase in labor costs here that should equal a price increase of about 7%.

Average Big Mac costs ~$5, so we're talking about $0.35 more.
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That labor cost seems low to me.
I wouldn't have a problem paying the extra few cents if I ate at Mickey D's.
 
G

Greenman

Lifer
Oct 15, 1999
21,751
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njdevilsfan87 said:
In-N-Out for my small family of 3 is less than $20 (we don't get drinks), whereas when we out at a restaurant it's like $60-$80 with tip included.
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In-N-Out is really hard to beat in the fast food world. Always my fast food of choice.
 
D

[DHT]Osiris

Lifer
Dec 15, 2015
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mikeymikec said:
To anyone who still labours under the delusion that say fast-food work is "unskilled labour":
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I find the entire notion of 'unskilled labor' to be kinda idiotic since like 95% of people learn 95% of what they need to know about a job, on the job.

I bet at least half of fast food workers could do almost any job humans do, if sufficiently motivated and given OJT.
 
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Fanatical Meat

Fanatical Meat

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Feb 4, 2009
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[DHT]Osiris said:
I find the entire notion of 'unskilled labor' to be kinda idiotic since like 95% of people learn 95% of what they need to know about a job, on the job.

I bet at least half of fast food workers could do almost any job humans do, if sufficiently motivated and given OJT.
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They need a safe serve certificate in MA.
State licensure requirement sure sounds like a profession to me.
 
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ivwshane

ivwshane

Lifer
May 15, 2000
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In and out is an outlier with one major differentiation and one I’d welcome if more companies followed; it isn’t a franchise. McDonald’s is expensive because you have the McDonald’s Corp taking a large cut of the profits and a high start up cost for the franchisee. So I could see one of two things happening; a slow down or even a decline in franchises and a sell off happens; or franchisers lower their cut.

Regardless, it’s good news for smaller independent businesses who don’t have middle man costs and who compete on quality. This has actually been happening already for about ten years now. McDonald’s doesn’t seem to get it and they think their slow fast food service deserves a premium when it doesn’t.
 
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quikah

Diamond Member
Apr 7, 2003
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uclaLabrat said:
Which is hilarious because in n out sells a double double for roughly $4; (much) higher quality, 20% less cost, and they already pay their workers more. In n out prints money ffs.
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Where is this? In SF area a double double is ~$5.50.

You can check out their starting pay here:

The lowest I could find in like Ukiah, CA was $19/hr. SF area is $21/hr. Even their TX locations are $17/hr.
 
nakedfrog

nakedfrog

No Lifer
Apr 3, 2001
61,290
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Dick's Drive-In out here has already been paying people $19-20/hour for a couple years, covers health insurance themselves, offers a $28k scholarship program, provides child care assistance, etc.
Their cheeseburgers have crept up in price to $3.05 over the last few years.
 
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skyking

skyking

Lifer
Nov 21, 2001
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+1 for Dicks!
When we were on the picket line in 2018, one of the small crane company owners showed up at our station on Mercer in Seattle in his old beater Ranger truck with a big cardboard box full of bags of Dicks. We all got to eat a bag of Dicks that day. Thanks Geno and Dicks!
 
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Fenixgoon

Fenixgoon

Lifer
Jun 30, 2003
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nakedfrog said:
Dick's Drive-In out here has already been paying people $19-20/hour for a couple years, covers health insurance themselves, offers a $28k scholarship program, provides child care assistance, etc.
Their cheeseburgers have crept up in price to $3.05 over the last few years.
Click to expand...
Sounds like this is one scenario where we could legitimately tell people to get a burger meal and eat a bag of dick's (fries)! 😂

Damnit ninja'd by @skyking
 
GodisanAtheist

GodisanAtheist

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Nov 16, 2006
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NWRMidnight said:
Right off the bat you claim "unskilled workers". You do know that there are other factors right? Most fast food is high paced, grueling hours, stressful, and hard on your body because most of them work their employees to the bone.

What it comes down to, people who throw around the "unskilled" talking point are hiding behind that "excuse" rather than admitting you believe lowly peasants don't deserve higher pay, regardless of what it is.
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-I always laugh at the "unskilled workers" narrative. I'm a Sr. Manager at my organization now, but I started frontline and sometimes I look back and wonder how the hell I made it through the days with some of the emotional and physical garbage that I had to deal with. When I look even further back and see the retail/department store days my mind spins.

What's wild is I look back on the same department that I started in and the expectations for the lowest performer now are above what they were for the highest performers when I started. And I'm only 40 years old, elder millennial territory, not even a X'er or Boomer.

If you took someone who's been in an office job (many of which are 100% "unskilled" jobs) and tossed them into the meat grinder (no pun intended) of the food services industry or even retail, I can only wonder how many would last a day let alone a week.
 
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[DHT]Osiris

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Dec 15, 2015
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GodisanAtheist said:
-I always laugh at the "unskilled workers" narrative. I'm a Sr. Manager at my organization now, but I started frontline and sometimes I look back and wonder how the hell I made it through the days with some of the emotional and physical garbage that I had to deal with. When I look even further back and see the retail/department store days my mind spins.

What's wild is I look back on the same department that I started in and the expectations for the lowest performer now are above what they were for the highest performers when I started. And I'm only 40 years old, elder millennial territory, not even a X'er or Boomer.

If you took someone who's been in an office job (many of which are 100% "unskilled" jobs) and tossed them into the meat grinder (no pun intended) of the food services industry or even retail, I can only wonder how many would last a day let alone a week.
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40 here too. I was an unskilled retail worker, followed by an unskilled firearm salesman, followed by an unskilled IT worker for the military, followed by an unskilled sysadmin for the govt, and finally higher education. Degrees are overrated IMHO.
 
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F

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
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Zorba said:
This is my question. $20/hr only seems outrageous because wages have been surpressed for so long, but why only fast food?
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$20 an hour is roughly $40k a year working full time. I’m fine with a living wage, I just wish people would understand why a living wage has to be $40k in California. (And for a family with kids $80k is not easy unless you’re in the shit parts of California)
 
nakedfrog

nakedfrog

No Lifer
Apr 3, 2001
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fskimospy said:
$20 an hour is roughly $40k a year working full time. I’m fine with a living wage, I just wish people would understand why a living wage has to be $40k in California. (And for a family with kids $80k is not easy unless you’re in the shit parts of California)
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This still skirts the question that was actually being posed there though: why fast food and not general retail positions?
 
GodisanAtheist

GodisanAtheist

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Nov 16, 2006
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Probably all the usual suspects:

- Retail greased the right palms, Food Industry didn't.
- Reps are heavily leveraged in retail, underleveraged in food services, so FS stocks get it in the tailpipe
- etc
 
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