Republicans frequently talk about how raising the minimum wage actually kills entry-level jobs. Democrats, being completely ignorant of the most basic economic principles, always try to prove them wrong. When big minimum wage hikes are tried and end up getting people fired, they never learn. California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) has stepped on a rake and proved this once again. Since Newsom desperately wants to be your next president, it’s worth paying attention to his actual performance, so you’ll know how to respond when your liberal Aunt Peggy starts praising Gavin’s hair at Thanksgiving.
The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) has done a deep dive into the effects of Newsom’s massive increase for fast food workers in California. The legislature had just passed a $16-an-hour minimum wage hike that went into effect in California in January 2024. Amazingly, the legislature immediately followed up with a hike to $20 an hour for most fast-food workers in California in April 2024. Newsom signed both of those hikes into law.
It was as if the California Democrats, led by Gavin Newsom, had all skipped the class that you’re supposed to take before Econ 101. The results, based on NBER’s analysis, shouldn’t surprise anyone.
Newsom wiped out jobs for the very same entry-level workers that he was supposed to be helping. According to NBER, around 3.2% of California’s fast-food workers lost their jobs, or around 18,000 people.
It gets even worse. Nearly every fast-food employee lost around 250 hours of work each year. The $20-an-hour wage probably seemed nice to them at first. But they actually lost more than six weeks’ worth of paychecks, which was about $5,000 in wages at the new rate.
The working conditions became miserable in restaurants, too. You can run a busy McDonald’s during the lunch and dinner rush with six or eight trained employees. Try doing it with three. With only half as many employees working shifts, those employees are now doing twice the labor. Plus, they’re even more miserable than the usual fast-food employees you encounter.
And the food prices? Oof!
Restaurants have one of the thinnest operating margins imaginable. When fast-food places couldn’t afford to adjust to Gavin Newsom’s $20 minimum wage, they had no choice but to drive prices through the roof.
Remember when you could get five beef-and-cheddar sandwiches at Arby’s for five bucks? It costs more than $15 now for one sandwich. Nice going, Gavin!
If you get chips and a drink with it, a footlong sandwich at Subway now goes for around $21. I mean… it’s Subway!! It’s cold cuts with some cheese on a piece of bread! I’m not knocking Subway. It’s not their fault. But you could get a nice steak dinner for that price up until recently.
Thanks to Gavin Newsom, a Chipotle burrito will run you around $13 in California, and that’s if you don’t order anything with it.
College students are one of the main groups that eat fast food on a regular basis. The food is (supposed to be) cheap, they don’t care if it’s healthy, and many don’t have their own kitchens. Before Newsom’s price hike, 52% of college students in California ate a fast-food meal more than once a week.
After the $20 minimum wage hike, 84% of college students in California reported that they now experience food insecurity on a regular basis. Combined with Joe Biden’s food inflation and Hair-Gel Hitler’s minimum wage increase, they can’t afford to eat three meals a day any longer. Poor college kids can’t afford $18 for a “value” meal at McDonald’s in Gavin Newsom’s socialist experiment.
Gavin Newsom lusts for the presidency with an indecency that is almost unspeakable. If the presidency were a small child, Newsom would be trying to lure it into his panel van with pictures of a lost puppy right now. He’s started a ridiculous podcast in which he’s trying to rebrand himself as a centrist.
No one should fall for this. Don’t listen to his words, look at his results. He wiped out thousands of jobs in California, and college kids are going hungry because of his policies. Gavin Newsom will do that to the rest of the country if he’s given the chance. Republicans had better not screw this up in the 2028 election.