Hoarding is considered a mental illness*.

[* Unless it's hoarding money. Then it's praised.]

This is it right here. $20/hr wouldn't even seem too outrageous if compensation had kept pace with productivity and profit margins. If anything, it'd be on the lower end and you wouldn't be able to sustain a decent living without splitting the cost up with someone else.

We should thrive, not just survive. Yall have no idea how much has been stolen from us. Me neither. Who knows what could have been if we weren't just complete shitters 24/7.

No, that's accounting for productivity, not inflation

Fast food work is something few want to do and hard to keep staffed. If you make it $20/h, any other job that seems more appealing will have to match or beat that wage.

We tie a lot of things to Poverty Level.

This is why Poverty Level hasn't changed to match anything close to resembling reality in decades.

We would just do the same thing. I wish he didn't but we already changed how Inflation is measured in the 1970s to remove Housing, Allow Canned Chicken instead of actual chicken. It's all a big pissing game from on high.

That's part of how it gets passed. The problem with setting it with an auto-increase is that it creates a situation where we might not ever pass another law about it because if we get it wrong on the high side Democrats will block any change and if we get it wrong on the low side Republicans will block any change.

A few years ago when the Fight for Fifteen was at its height, Mitt Romney proposed a minimum wage that auto-increased with inflation and he put the starting rate at...$10. And included some crazy cuts to Social Security and stuff so it was never going to happen but that's what I mean about the numbers being so far apart. $10/hr is so low that the left flank of the Democrats would reject it, which means you need more Republicans, and you'll just never get enough Republicans for a minimum wage increase.

Almost like that says something about... Something?

Because wage increases don't actually hurt anyone. They actually grow the economy

It benefits tiny towns more.

The one big employer in that tiny town can probably get away with paying whatever because there's no competition in a tiny town, this is enforcing a wage increase for the lowest paid people.

To the extent prices increase, it's only a percentage of a percentage. Even if the cost is 100% passed along to the consumer, it's a 25% increase in the price of labor, which is 30% of the cost of a burger.

So apparently (from Google) the Big Mac combo is $18 already in California, and the $5.40 of that which is labor would go up to $6.75, for a total new maximum price of $19.35.

Meanwhile, the poorest people in the state are getting a 25% pay raise, from $33k to $41k annually if they're full time. That's a huge stimulus because poor people spend the money they earn.

Obviously I want all of us to be paid a reasonable salary, but it's because of this concept you mentioned that I can't wait for time to pass and we can see the outcome. It will absolutely help our argument if we can prove that a burger won't cost $30 now and that stores won't close because of it.

Because if it legitimately hurts local towns, you have even bigger issues to deal with. I live in NC and you very genuinely cannot live here on a minimum wage of $7.25. In fact, I'd argue that $12-15 (effectively the new minimum wage in my city going by what fast food pays) is pretty hard to live on in my southern state which is by most accounts pretty cheap to live in. California is much more expensive, so I'd argue that a $20 min wage is actually pretty reasonable.

By being too low for them, too!

From the article:

At first, it appeared the bread exemption applied to Panera Bread restaurants. Bloomberg News reported the change would benefit Greg Flynn, a wealthy campaign donor to Newsom. But the Newsom administration said the wage increase law does apply to Panera Bread because the restaurant does not make dough on-site. Also, Flynn has announced he would pay his workers at least $20 per hour.

Actually, it is. The owner decided to match the wage increase to dodge the controversy, though it seems the question of whether the law actually covers Panera will need to be settled in court for a definitive answer.

https://www.restaurantbusinessonline.com/operations/hype-aside-panera-exempt-californias-wage-bill

With that kind of honesty, I would trust you with my life.