Former Foster’s Freeze assistant general manager Monica Navarro spoke on “The Bottom Line” about the sudden closure and other people’s reactions.
Fair wage advocates are calling for California’s new $20 minimum wage law for fast food workers to be extended to all sectors to help working-class people struggling with the state’s high cost of living. .
FOX Business spoke with Saru Jayaraman, president of One Fair Wage, to discuss what she described as a sharp rise in levels of household insecurity and food insecurity following the pandemic.
Getting a $20 minimum wage for fast food workers is “just the beginning,” she says.
Jayaraman pointed out that the cost of living in the Golden State is prohibitive, with some counties requiring a wage of $40 an hour to live comfortably.
California’s minimum wage mandate causes the greatest harm
One Fair Wage President Saru Jayaraman speaks at the “Learning about the Worker Experience” event at Skull Restaurant in Brooklyn, New York City on April 11, 2022. (Roy Rochlin/Getty Images, One Fair Wage/Getty Images)
“People are leaving the state, they’re not having children, they’re not having families. All of these things are very important to us as people who live in California and need to make a living,” Jayaraman told FOX Business. That’s the basic thing to think about.” “The level of crisis that people have endured since the pandemic is profound.”
California Governor Newsom signed AB 1228 in September, and the law went into effect earlier this month. The new law applies to employees of at least 60 restaurants nationwide.
Before the law took effect, restaurateurs and other industry participants warned that the law would be detrimental to small businesses and consumers.
One Los Angeles-based restaurant owner complained to FOX Business that there would be “massive layoffs” and “massive job losses.”
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Another former assistant manager at Foster’s Freeze in Lemoore, California, called the new law “shocking.”
Jayaraman dismissed such concerns, insisting that past minimum wage hikes had not produced such dire predictions.
“That’s the argument they always make. Every time the minimum wage goes up, they always say it’s going to destroy businesses and kill jobs, but we’ve never seen that happen. . Not in California or any other state. That has never happened,” said Jayaraman, who is also director of the Food Labor Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley.
He argued that raising the minimum wage would put more money in workers’ pockets, allowing them to spend their extra income to stimulate the economy and grow industry.
Saru Jayaraman speaks at “One Fair Wage Fundraiser” held at Gracias Madre in West Hollywood, California on September 21, 2023. (Mark von Holden/Variety via Getty Images/Getty Images)
A minimum wage would pass prices on to consumers, she argued, who are already experiencing inflation coupled with stagnant wages.
“Frankly, inflation is already happening and many prices are already going up. Grocery store prices are already going up. “It’s not a matter of not being able to raise the bar,” she said. “Prices are already rising. If we don’t keep wages in line with the rising cost of living, either workers will leave the state or something terrible like this will happen.”
Jayaraman said small businesses are “leading the way” in providing more funding for workers.
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“They’re working with us to say, ‘We really need policies that create a level playing field so we don’t stick our necks out,'” Jayaraman said. “We need policies that tell these workers that they deserve to work in restaurants again.”
