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.
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.