As a Californian I only eat out whenever I have to these days, such as while traveling, and even then it is more cost-effective to eat bologna sandwiches than to eat fast food. The prices are outrageous, and these minimum wage hikes will prove Sisyphean since those hikes will be eaten away by even higher costs, assuming they don’t get their hours reduced or face a layoff. Then we’ll have the same discussion a few years later when the minimum wage is $25 or even $30 per hour.

To piggyback off another poster’s comments, it used to be that we traded away quality and our health in exchange for cheap, convenient, reasonably tasty food. But nowadays even a basic combo meal costs at least $10. A decent meal at a non-fast food place is easily $20-25 after tax and tip. It’s understandable; housing prices have went through the roof, supply chain disruptions during COVID led to dramatic price spikes that haven’t fully recovered, and then there’s the effects of low interest rates and stimulus spending. But it’s painful: I’ve been getting by with 2-3% annual merit increases while I’ve had to deal with double-digit annual increases in the prices of food and other necessities. I also missed out on homeownership, first with the ultra-competitive market in 2021 when I was constantly outbid, and in 2022 onward with interest rates rising while home prices remaining stubbornly high, thus pricing me out the market. But I should count myself lucky that I haven’t been laid off like so many people have. So I make do by substituting McDonald’s for Costco food court items and for makeshift sandwiches, even while traveling.

We truly need better monetary, fiscal, and housing policies. No more deficit spending (even if this means tax hikes), no more artificially-low interest rates, and much looser zoning laws. Unfortunately I’m very pessimistic with American politics. While I do see some progress being made with increased housing construction and with zoning reform, both parties are addicted to deficit spending and easy money.

> The prices are outrageous, and these minimum wage hikes will prove Sisyphean since those hikes will be eaten away by even higher costs, assuming they don’t get their hours reduced or face a layoff. Then we’ll have the same discussion a few years later when the minimum wage is $25 or even $30 per hour.

It's all a symptom of the absolute cancer that is real estate investing.

Every $100 increase in the rent means an extra $30-50 needed in wages if you still want to maintain housing costs being 30-50% of your wage.

And nearly all rent increases are just simply price gouging. You have people that are barely treading water paying their rent, and as soon as minimum wage goes up, those absolute leeches we call landlords will just suck that extra money right up via a rent increase.

I just don't know what the solution is. Rent controls have a myriad of unintended consequences. Simply creating more housing doesn't necessarily work, since it all gets bought up by investors that maintain the same high rent.

The return on investment goes down if there is more housing.

Especially if the demand for housing is more or less satisfied. Buying incremental new units at that point is going to mostly be cost.

If the workers can't afford to live the food is under-priced.

Pretty simple.

If nobody can afford to buy the food, then the workers preparing and serving the food would be out of a job due to a lack of revenue from the restaurant.

Pretty simple.

Yes, that is how businesses work.

If paying the workers enough for them to live makes the product too expensive for the prices to be competitive on the market, the business is unsustainable and shouldn't continue to operate.

Have you considered why the cost of living is so high? If everyone in the community made a million dollars a year but the housing supply was artificially restricted so that way people had to pay six-figure monthly rents due to supply-and-demand factors, then even a million a year wouldn’t be enough. Under your logic, that community would be completely devoid of any businesses except those that could pay even higher multi-million salaries, since “the business is unsustainable.”

Where there are definitely cases where people are being underpaid and exploited, the high cost of living isn’t caused by people being underpaid. In fact, higher wages without an increase in the amount of goods available to purchase means that prices will go up. It’s the dog chasing its own tail.

We need to address the high cost of living not by giving everybody a raise, but by fighting NIMBYism, building more housing, and stopping policies that erode the value of our currency, making it harder and harder for people to keep up.

Note that not everyone is getting a raise, only those making minimum wage.

True, only the minimum wage employees will get a raise by law but the reality is that shift supervisors will want a raise since they will want a premium for having more responsibility and managers will want more, and up it goes up the chain. Some minimum wage workers will get a raise but in time everyone will get a raise. Anyone making under $20 will short changed and will not tolerate being paid less. It's human nature.

This isn't meant to solve the cost of living crisis for everyone all at once.

This is meant to help fast food workers survive.

Every single cost, labor or otherwise, is being passed on to customers. It's wild that people still eat McDonald's at 2020 prices let alone 2024 prices and beyond. There used to be a contract that the worst food would come with a proportional discount but that's out the window.

I don't eat there much anymore. Only once every few months