Fast Food Council in California is an unnecessary burden – the County Orange register

A relatively new advice funded by taxpayers aims to regulate various aspects of the California fast food industry – but that it is barely capable of performing basic functions, it already plans to stick it to small businesses.

During its first year, Fast Food Council had trouble hiring staff, organizing meetings or even deciding how its meetings will be organized, according to a recent report of calmatters. But despite these shortcomings, he soon debated still imposing another increase in the minimum wage.

The minimum wage for these companies has already more than doubled in just over a decade, which has caused higher prices, reduced hours and less jobs, especially for children. Meanwhile, the cost of raw materials has skyrocketed.

In other words, it’s a bad time for another minimum wage hike.

COMPOSITION

The Council is responsible for making major decisions concerning work during the best of a massive industry.

It is impossible for a panel of experts to have all the information necessary to effectively make such important decisions, which makes this group, which is divided between business leaders and union activists with a former member of legislative staff as a circuit breaker, clearly without reservation for the task to be accomplished.

Business owners know the needs of their own business, while union activists are experts in their own experience as workers. None of the two is qualified to make decisions at industry level. This type of central planning is popular with progressives, who ignore the lessons learned in Marxist countries like the Soviet Union. In fact, the makeup of the council, a battle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, is more closely like the fan of the enlightened communist manifesto than an intelligent solution.

I doubt that union activists have an interest in considering the concerns of industry as a whole, because this whole exercise is only a means of stimulating non -unionized market work. But perhaps these individuals will prove to me the opposite.

FOR WHAT

The authority of the Council on the fast food industry is not common. Supporters said that he “promoted action solutions and would maximize the advantages for poorly served and marginalized communities”, which is of course not true if we consider the disadvantages of inflation, job loss and hours reduction.

Really, it makes life more difficult both for companies and workers in the minimum wage as a whole – so I assume that it is fair in this direction.

The law is so bad that it must have been negotiated in secret and Governor Gavin Newsom tried to give an exemption to his longtime friend and to his political donor. It was allegedly sticking it to large fast food chains like McDonald’s, but the vast majority of fast food restaurants are franchises, which means that they are small businesses.

At the time, the assembly of the time, Chris Holden, the Pasadena Democrat who wrote the law argued that he “guarantees that fast food companies to pay their share and participate in what the franchisees have the support they need to manage safe and compliant restaurants.”

It is ironic that Holden claims to be concerned about the impact of regulatory compliance on small businesses, because it has supported so much of these regulations, including it. And although societies “pay their fair share” is an excellent bait of plaque, the franchisees are those which carry the weight of these policies.

A year ago, the minimum wage on these small businesses jumped $ 5 ($ 20), after additional increases totaling $ 5 compared to 2017, with a more modest increase a few years earlier, more than double their minimum wage.

It seems great for some people, but do not forget that restaurant owners are already operating on thin margins of razors and it is a high increase in labor costs. The addition of another increase now, even if it is only $ 0.70 an hour, makes no sense, especially without giving time to adapt.

“This is the error of the sub -subsidians,” said Dr. Wayne Winegarden, economist and my colleague from the Pacific Research Institute, noting that this small increase will be on average at around 14% at the beneficiary of the store, which would oblige companies to make decisions concerning the rise in prices and / / cost reduction. “It seems material to me.”

Inflation hurts

Like anyone who has gone to the recently conscious grocery store, the cost of the essential elements such as eggs, chicken, products and essentially everything we eat has rushed. Companies must absorb this or transmit it to consumers. This leads to a mixture of higher prices, a drop in hours for workers and loss of employment, which has already occurred following the previous increase.

According to a study by Beacon Economics, this was particularly disastrous for workers, aged 16 to 19. Unemployment in this age group increased substantially, almost nine percentage points, in the first quarter of 2022 in the first quarter of 2024. It was around 7.5 percentage points higher than the national trend. A similar, but smaller trend was observed for the cohort from 20 to 24 years old.