There is no industry too large and no job too small that California Democrats can’t manage to destroy with destructive micromanaging.
A study from the National Bureau of Economic Research analyzed the effects of California’s fast food minimum wage hike, which increased the industry’s minimum wage to $20 per hour (and can continue increasing it over the next several years). The researchers’ “median estimate” for how many jobs were lost because of this increase was 18,000, meaning that California’s fast food industry would have suffered a 3.2% decline compared to other states. California’s fast food industry previously had a similar jobs trajectory as other states, whose employment has slightly increased in the time that California’s has notably decreased.
On top of that, an estimated 1,040 fast food restaurants closed in California from April 2024, when the minimum wage hike went into effect, to September 2024. To add to the disastrous results, fast food restaurants up and down the state cut hours for their employees to counteract the costs of the minimum wage hike. They also increased prices, adding to California’s brutal inflation and limiting the benefits of more pay for whatever workers managed to keep their jobs and hours intact.
IN-N-OUT CEO TO LEAVE CALIFORNIA: ‘DOING BUSINESS IS NOT EASY HERE’
It can always get worse, and it just might. In-N-Out CEO Lynsi Snyder moved her family out of California, saying that “raising a family is not easy” in the state. While she clarified that the company’s corporate headquarters would remain in California, the company is opening an “eastern territory office” in Tennessee, which is where Snyder now lives.
Even when fast food restaurants are successful, California finds a way to close them. In-N-Out closed its only Oakland location, despite it being profitable, because the city’s crime crisis made it too dangerous for employees and customers.
Once again, California Democrats have attempted to impose their idea of how the world should work on the laws of economics. It has resulted in rising costs, fewer hours for employees to earn money, and people losing their jobs. California is tied for the highest unemployment rate of any state, and yet the state manages to keep finding ways to make things worse. Californians are losing businesses, jobs, and money. Yet, state Democrats keep digging a deeper economic hole as they arrogantly assume they know what is better for residents and businesses than those residents and businesses do.