California's controversial minimum wage increase has added about 11,000 jobs to the state's economy, according to Gov. Gavin Newsom.
But celebrity chef Andrew Gruelle dismissed what he called the governor's latest act of “self-congratulatory propaganda.”
“It's too early to put the book on the shelf and take a victory march. This is typical Gavin Newsom self-indulgent propaganda based on questionable data,” Gruelle argued Thursday during an appearance on “Bernie & Company.”
“First of all, these are not seasonally adjusted numbers. Secondly, he's using nine or 10 months, and in fact, in this data the bill was only in effect for three months. So you can reduce these numbers to around 5,000 or 6,000, but that's not a huge number in the grand scheme of 750,000 jobs,” explained the chef, who currently runs five restaurants, one of which is in California.
Gruelle continued to deny Newsom's claims, arguing that even if Newsom's much-touted data is accurate, his policies would continue to have “unintended consequences.”
“Number one, the first thing that multi-location restaurants did when they found out about this bill was they reduced their overtime, their employees who were working over 40 hours, to 25 or 30 hours. Those employees got other jobs, they split the positions. So instead of one person working 55 or 60 hours, two people work 30 or 32 hours, and it becomes a full-time job,” he explained.
Governor Newsom raised the state's minimum wage to $20 an hour in April of this year.
Gruelle argues that since its implementation, this shiny new policy has had unintended consequences that continue to plague the beleaguered food industry.
The celebrity chef revealed that his restaurant was “inundated” with people looking for second jobs in April this year, and that his business has been continually busy in the months since.
Gruelle went on to analyze Newsom's provocative statistics about the state's jobs economy.
“What we didn't take into account is the fact that full-service restaurants have declined significantly. I mean, fast food jobs increased by probably 6,000 to 7,000, but full-service restaurants also closed. Why is that? As I've said from the beginning, this $20 an hour mandate doesn't just apply to restaurants with 20 or more locations in the fast food sector,” Gruelle concluded.
“They're artificially increasing it without mandating it by targeting a very large sector of the industry. But this is a mandate for all restaurants, especially full-service restaurants. This is hurting the entire industry. But the data isn't coming out yet.”
