Following California implementing a law raising its minimum wage to $20 for more than 500,000 fast-food workers in the state in 2024, Christopher Thornberg, founding partner of research firm Beacon Economics, offered a warning about the state raising its minimum wage.
“California’s well-intended push to reduce income inequality via wage floors is beginning to have a significant negative impact on some of our most vulnerable workers—our youth, particularly those from lower-income households,” he wrote earlier this year.
His concerns echoed those of fast-food franchise owners, one of whom told Fortune in 2024 that higher wages would be unsustainable for smaller chains with slim margins.
But nearly two years after the law’s passage, economists are seeing very different results than what was initially feared. A working paper from University of California at Berkeley released this month found the policy increased average weekly wages for eligible workers by 11% and did not reduce employment. Prices increased modestly, about 1.5%, or the equivalent of about six cents for a $4 item.
Any worry that if you’re restricting businesses from growing that you’d also be sacrificing economies-of-scale that work to drive prices down?
No.
If this is your belief, can I ask if you’re living it today? Do you eschew any mass produced goods and instead purchase only goods made by artisan craftsmen? If not, why not if its the superior way?
I see. You wanna go ad hominem.
We buy very few newly produced goods, preferring estate sales and thrift stores.
I am done discussing any of this with you at this point.
I’m not sure you understand the definition of an ad hominem attack. Nothing I said to you was ad hominem. I asked if you practice what you preach. Unless you consider what you preach to be objectionable then no ad hominem language was used. Even if you do consider your own position objectionable making my questions to you insulting, it is unreasonable for me to expect you’d be arguing a position you yourself don’t agree with, so even then nothing I said would be ad hominem.
Those are the products of mass production and economies of scale. Simply acquiring them secondhand doesn’t wash away their provenance. If you were to get your way and eliminate companies that exercise economies of scale, the mass produced goods you’re buying from estate sales and thrift stores would quickly vanish as a source for you to buy more.
That is your choice, of course. I hope you have a nice day.
Historically, the lowering of prices have come as a detriment to the consumer. Be it lower wages for workers, less benefits for workers, difference in quality of materials, quality of creation, quality control to let lemons through, exploiting vulnerable work forces elsewhere. Rarely has it resulted in a better product or service.
I think you’re confusing symptoms of late stage capitalism with economies of scale.
Do you honestly think that handmade goods only by craftsman should be the exclusive way we have goods made?