The minimum wage question may have just gotten more interesting.
Under a new law signed by California Gov. Gavin Newsom Thursday, that state’s fast-food workers will be paid at least $20 an hour beginning April 1, moving them near the top of the list in terms of the minimum wage.
That’s according to data from the University of California-Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education, according to the Associated Press. The state’s minimum wage for all other workers – $15.50 per hour – is already among the highest in the United States.
Cheering fast food workers and labor leaders gathered around Newsom as he signed the bill at an event in Los Angeles.
“This is a big deal,” Newsom said, according to the AP.
Newsom’s signature on Thursday reflects the power and influence of labor unions in the nation’s most populous state, which have worked to organize fast food workers in an attempt to improve their wages and working conditions.
In exchange for higher pay, labor unions have dropped their attempt to make fast food corporations liable for the misdeeds of their independent franchise operators in California, the AP reported. The industry, meanwhile, has agreed to pull a referendum related to worker wages off the 2024 ballot.
California’s fast food workers earn an average of $16.60 per hour, or just over $34,000 per year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s below the California Poverty Measure for a family of four, a statistic calculated by the Public Policy Institute of California and the Stanford Center on Poverty and Equality that accounts for housing costs and publicly-funded benefits, according to the AP.
In addition to the $20 minimum wage, the law creates a fast food council that has the power to increase that wage each year through 2029 by 3.5% or the change in averages for the U.S. Consumer Price Index for urban wage earners and clerical workers, whichever is lower.
The raise takes effect on April 1 and applies to workers at restaurants that have at least 60 locations nationwide – with an exception for restaurants that make and sell their own bread, like Panera Bread.
