Fast food and American culture: Why do wages fail at being fair?

Fast food workers are disproportionately Hispanic, making up 24.6% of the industry’s workforce compared with 18.8% of the overall workforce. California’s pay hike is a result of a contentious deal struck by labor leaders, including the large Service Employees International Union, and fast-food companies last year. The new wage law applies to fast-food chains with at least 60 locations nationwide, with exemptions for some bakeries and smaller fast-food outposts inside grocery stores, airports and other venues. Right now, California’s fast food workers earn an average of $16.60 per hour, or just over $34,000 per year, according to the U.S.

New California law raises minimum wage for fast food workers to $20 per hour, among nation’s highest

• Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the law Thursday amid a throng of cheering workers and labor leaders at an event in Los Angeles.
• This new law also establishes a Fast Food Council, which can weigh whether to further increase the minimum wage or make other changes in the future.
• The minimum wage boost for fast food workers could make that even more difficult.
• Bureau of Labor Statistics, and many are supporting their families on minimum wages set at the federal government’s floor of $7.25 an hour.
• Newsom’s signature reflects the power and influence of labor unions in the nation’s most populous state, which have worked to organize fast food workers in an attempt to improve their wages and working conditions.

Restaurant chains and employees are left with many questions about this change in wages. “As an owner or employer, you have to have coverage to pay them. If you cannot, you have to shut your door, or they’re gonna lose hours,” noted Amir Samadi who owns a Round Table Pizza restaurant in San Jose. “I know a good number of employers in these sectors are concerned that their workers will move out of long term care or care of the disabled, and move into fast food where they can — at least currently — earn more,” Bernick said.

• At night, she cleans trains for Houston’s Metro system, where she earns about $17 an hour.
• He will have to raise prices anywhere from 5% to 15% at his stores, and is no longer hiring or seeking to open new locations in California, he said.
• That was the main side-effect a decade ago, when Seattle hiked its minimum wage to $15, research suggests.
• Minimum-wage workers in 21 states will see a bigger paycheck come the new year.
• In recent years, the battle for higher minimum wages has increasingly played out at the city, county and state levels as the federal minimum wallows at $7.25 an hour.

New $20 minimum wage for California fast food workers starts Monday

That included $720 million in recent years for upgrades to school kitchens to better prepare fresh meals, plus $45 million to create an apprenticeship program to professionalize the industry. California fast-food workers cooking Big Macs or whipping Frappuccinos will start making a minimum wage of $20 an hour on Monday. The trade group petty cash that represents owners of fast food franchises backed the legislation.

“Great deal of confusion” remains for restaurants and workers about who will be impacted

Nuria Alvarenga has worked food service in the Lynwood School District for 20 years. “This policy is going to be really different in different parts of California,” says Jacob Vigdor, professor of public policy and governance at the University of Washington, who has studied the effects of Seattle’s 2014 minimum wage hike. All this makes California’s wage hike a high-profile case study for how exactly a higher minimum wage reverberates through the local economy. The Jack in the Box worker Jauregui, 52, has been cobbling together two salaries, working about 54 hours a week between the restaurant and a laundromat. He stated that he will have to increase prices at his stores by 5% to 15% and that he is no longer looking to hire new employees or create new sites in California. Newsom signing the law could win back some favor with organized labor, who sharply criticized him last week for vetoing a separate bill aimed at protecting the jobs of truck drivers amid the rise of self-driving technology.

The law creates a Fast Food Council that has the power to increase that wage each year through 2029 by 3.5% or the change in averages for the U.S. Consumer Price Index for urban wage earners and clerical workers, whichever is lower. But since it minimum wage around the us passed, many franchise owners have bemoaned the impact the law is having on them, especially during California’s slowing economy.

• It is one of 20 states at the $7.25 federal minimum wage floor and that rate hasn’t budged since 2009.
• AP correspondent Julie Walker reports a new $20 minimum wage for California fast food workers starts Monday.
• “As an owner or employer, you have to have coverage to pay them. If you cannot, you have to shut your door, or they’re gonna lose hours,” noted Amir Samadi who owns a Round Table Pizza restaurant in San Jose.
• Fast food workers are disproportionately Hispanic, making up 24.6% of the industry’s workforce compared with 18.8% of the overall workforce.
• Women make up almost 60% of workers seeing a raise, according to EPI’s analysis.
• Democrats in the state Legislature passed the law last year in part as an acknowledgement that many of the more than 500,000 people who work in fast food restaurants are not teenagers earning some spending money, but adults working to support their families.

The state’s minimum wage for all other workers — $15.50 per hour — is already among the highest in the United States. The law applies to restaurants offering limited or no table service and which are part of a national chain with at least 60 establishments nationwide. Restaurants operating inside a grocery establishment are exempt, https://www.bookstime.com/articles/accountant-for-startups as are restaurants producing and selling bread as a stand-alone menu item. Meanwhile the federal minimum wage of $7.25 has not increased in 15 years and the spending power of one dollar is not what it used to be — putting workers in a tough spot as prices for groceries and housing have risen over time. Contrast Texas to California, which now has the highest fast food minimum wage of any state since lawmakers passed a minimum $20 hourly wage for those workers.

Plus, Reich said while the statewide minimum wage is $16 per hour, many of the state’s larger cities have their own minimum wage laws setting the rate higher than that. Bureau of Labor Statistics, and many are supporting their families on minimum wages set at the federal government’s floor of $7.25 an hour. Statewide, some districts have already taken steps to compete in the new reality. Last year, the Sacramento Unified School District — anticipating the law’s passage — agreed to a 10% increase for its food service workers and other low-paying jobs, followed by another 6% increase July 1 of this year to bump their wages up to $20 per hour.