California's minimum wage hike did not cause job losses.

@graphite Most McDonald's have kiosks now where customers order food and one cash register, it's called technology.

@SatanBurger And those kiosks reduce the number of, you know, employees they have to pay by making customers type in the orders themselves. Go to McDonald's, Burger King, other burger joints besides In-N-Out these days in California - hardly any employees there. I've seen all this for myself.

@graphite But you know, it has nothing to do with minimum wage being increased like how that's the original subject of my post and not the rise of technology reducing the amount of workers.

@graphite Low paid jobs are generally difficult to fill, hence the need for technology substitutes. Raise wages and conditions and perhaps you will find more humans to take your burger order 🙂

@SunshineGirl These restaurants do not make the huge profits that we're supposed to believe they do. Require substantial raising of the salaries and the jobs and hours will be cut and the prices raised. I used to make minimum wage - $2.50 an hour, in high school. Minimum wage was never intended to support a family and pay the mortgage.

@SatanBurger it’s called cheap labor

@Prison1203 That's way oversimplifying the issue. Businesses adopt tech for multiple reasons, not solely because of minimum wage hikes. If wages were to remain stagnant but technology increased, we'd still have companies leaning towards technology. The only real way to avoid it is to not develop technology at all. Furthermore, studies show that minimum wage increases have a small impact on employment levels like the Economic Policy Institute where past wage hikes didn't lead to significant job losses.

I also do believe I read into research where several fast food chains also opened as well as some closed but it wasn't all due to minimum wage hikes but for other reasons like debt from before but was attributed to wage hikes, which wasn't the full story.

It's also an oversimplifying statement because capitalism thrives off competition but it relies on balancing wealth distribution (something that hasn't been done in ages off late stage capitalism,) to sustain itself. If wages are kept low while tech rises, consumer purchasing power diminishes, creating systemic economic challenges. Investing in higher wages makes sense.

@SatanBurger no, it’s simply logical

@Prison1203 No it's oversimplifying.

@Prison1203 The concept of "cheap labor" is a logical fallacy. A minimum income is required to sustain a healthy and viable workforce. A higher level of income is required for a self-supporting economy. The only question is who pays for this? Business and consumers through appropriate pricing of the services they use, or the state through indirect taxation? As an advocate of free markets I support the former.

@SunshineGirl that’s why we have a set minimum wage, fast food places are meant for kids in schools not supposed to be a career choice for adults unless they are in management

@Prison1203 Hmm . . sounds a bit Marxist to me. Why not let the market rather than government decide?

@SunshineGirl if the market decided then the companies would not pay what they needed to do

@Prison1203 Let us see . . but it should not be for the taxpayer to subsidise the low wages of a multi-national.corporation through social security.

@SunshineGirl pay should be based on merit , and as I said before fast food was not meant to be a career choice, and shouldn’t be making more than some skilled workers, you can teach a monkey to flip burgers if you can teach them sign language

@Prison1203 If fast food is not meant to provide a living, the industry should not rely upon human labour.

@SunshineGirl tell me why a job for mostly uneducated workers should provide a living for them? When they can’t even get the order right most of the time. Every time I go to a McDonalds or Wendy’s they get my order wrong and I end up having to go back

@Prison1203 Because if McDonalds is not providing a living wage, the taxpayer is picking up the bill, which is not a good use of public resources. You'd better start training those monkeys then.

@SunshineGirl why should McDonald or Wendy’s or any fast food pay a living wage, if they want a living wage get an education and earn a wage you can live on , education is easy you just have to want it, most of the low wage earners can’t get a good job because most employers want people that put in the effort to get an education at least a high school diploma and I’ll bet 80% or more do not have one