Nope. Just graduated college, was living at home at parent’s expense. Did work a few shifts at Taco Bell one semester, but their grades suffered so they quit. 
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Correct. Obviously people working contributes to the economy; you can’t buy stuff unless somebody makes and distributes in the first place. But, if nobody is buying it then that doesn’t matter; making money making & selling thing requires a buyer. Which is obvious, it’s just that the importance of the consumer gets ignored for political reasons.
That by the way is why “trickle down economics” and similar schemes consistently fail to help the economy; it’s not just corporate greed, it’s a genuine issue that if demand stays the same then corporations simply have no reason to increase production.
My folks retired to Idaho aka “America As It Used To Be.” Idaho has been advertising to California retirees for decades. They bragged about the lower fees and taxes.
They also bragged that the small town they had moved to didn’t even have a building code. Small government was the philosophy. By the time I visited, there had been several fires downtown due to bad wiring, and a building code had been adopted - with inspections and fees.
Yep, one reason why true Libertarian systems wont work.
Idaho seems like it is becoming a haven for MAGAs.
There is no “freeing up” of jobs:
This working paper estimates a loss of 18k jobs for the year ending in September 2024. That’s a conservative estimate because it compares against all other states, including those with more modest MW increases.
This analysis does not rely on preliminary CES data like Reich and Sosinskiy, nor does it restrict itself to a smaller number of chains like Sovich and Hamdi.
It does not examine where people who would have worked such jobs end up. And it’s just a year.
Especially if you are a beneficiary of Prop 13. If I moved to Texas I’d be paying at least 3x more in property taxes, which is way more than my California income tax. And that’s assuming a less expensive house there.
The overall tax burden does not favor California over Texas.
A good assumption.
I assume @Projammer forget about this old thread, but now that it’s been revived I wondered what his view on the fast food minimum wage is now, since he said he would return after a year to talk about the real world difference.
I see that California is raising the minimum wage for all workers another 40 cents in 2026.
On Jan. 1, 2026, the minimum wage for all employers in California will be $16.90.
That will put California at the second-highest minimum wage in the country, after the District of Columbia, where it’s $17.95 an hour. In Washington state, the minimum wage is $16.66 per hour; $16.50 in parts of New York state; and $16.35 an hour in Connecticut.
Those are some of the areas with the highest cost of living so high minimums are expected. More than a dozen states, including California, are now mandating annual increases usually based on inflation, which was 2.49% last year.
The problem with that is you’d have to live in Texas.
I can’t rent Texas out? (And live in hell)
How could you tell the difference?
And, to the point, I was describing a particular situation - mine in fact. Texans seem to seldom talk about their property taxes. I’m also fine with paying some more taxes to help the poorer around here have access to health care.
The reason I house I’d buy elsewhere would be cheaper is that I wouldn’t want to try to keep up a house as big as I’d get for the current price of mine. House prices are a bug if you are looking and a feature if you were lucky enough to buy when I did.
The two problems with the “Texas has lower taxes” argument is that first it’s based on the unspoken right-wing assumption that taxes aren’t actually used for anything but just thrown away. Meanwhile in real life Texas is constantly making the news for one disaster after another caused by the neglect of its public sector and welfare. Quality of life is a thing.
There’s also the issue that Texas as is standard for Red states is heavily dependent on Federal money for support; California could charge less in taxes too if it wasn’t constantly dealing with right wing Federal persecution instead of subsidies.
Also, with Trump and company destroying the national and world economy, blaming the minimum wage during a world disaster is silly.
Good points.
While I’m waiting to let an actual economist do a critique on that paper, I’ll note that the authors are deeply funded by the usual libertarian gang. The first economist is heavily subsidized by the Hoover Institute, which is funded by Scaife, Bradley, and Walton foundations, among others. The other two are tied to Texas A&M’s Private Enterprise Research Center, which gets mucho funding from Koch.
When that paper has passed peer review, or we have additional papers that don’t come from Libertarians-R-Us, I’ll take a deeper look.
Before Trump California was sending more money to the feds than we are getting back. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a law saying that each state should get exactly as much money back from Washington as it sends. The Federal government hating red states would in large part turn into 3rd world countries overnight.
No. We’re supposed to be a single country, and the relatively strong should be helping out the relatively weak. It’s a bit tougher when the weakness is from shooting themselves in the foot out of spite or demonstrably incorrect ideology, but even so.
Again, despite what the Op thought, the new minimum raise has had little or none significant impact, and I predict it wont.
Didn’t forget, just didn’t realize it had been a year. Thanks for the ping.
I had copilot do a scrape and one result was the previously linked 18k job losses.
Copilot query: What has been the result of californias $20 minimum wage
Another study says 16k based on data comes from the new Bureau of Labor Statistics. I’ll lend this one some credibility based on the source.
Employers responded by:
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Cutting employee hours (93% of surveyed restaurants)
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Consolidating positions or laying off staff (70%)
The Sacramento Bee doesn’t seem to be a fan either.
On the one year birthday of California’s $20 minimum wage, there is little to celebrate
Sorry for the paywall.
So my analysis is that it’s not the CF I was anticipating, but it’s been far from the boon that Newsom was pitching it to be.