Thousands of jobs have already been eliminated by California’s law to raise the minimum wage to $20 for restaurant workers, which goes into effect April 1.
For eight years, Michael Ojeda delivered food for a Pizza Hut in Ontario, California, using the income he received to support his family.
In December, the 29-year-old received a letter from the pizza franchise informing him that his employment was being terminated in February. The news shook him.
“Pizza Hut was my career for nearly a decade and with little to no notice it was taken away,” Ojeda said, whose story was recently highlighted by the Wall Street Journal.
Ojeda appears to be just one of the thousands of casualties of a new California law that will raise the minimum wage for fast-food workers to $20 an hour on April 1 for all restaurant chains that have at least 60 locations nationally.
Making $20 instead of $15 sounds like a win, but economics shows there’s no such thing as a free lunch. California lawmakers just proved it.
https://fee.org/articles/the-results-of-californias-new-20-fast-food-minimum-wage-are-already-in/