Told ya so: $20 minimum wage in California is about to put thousands of low-income people out of work

[martybegan]

A five year old could have seen this coming. Unfortunately, the people running California aren't as smart as a five year old.

LOL



In response to recent minimum wage increases in California, fast food restaurants across the state are shifting to automation to get rid of wage-earning humans.

The move to making customers place orders at digital kiosks alleviates what owners say is the financial strain of rising labor costs after the minimum wage for the state’s fast food workers increased on April 1 from $16 to $20 per hour.

Harsh Ghai, a Burger King franchise owner who manages 140 outlets along the West Coast, is leading the transition to automation. He plans to introduce digital kiosks across all his restaurants within months — a drastic acceleration from his original timeline of five to 10 years.

You can't pay people more than they put into your product or service, while keeping said product or service at a competitive price.

In the end, the actual minimum wage is always $0.00

 

[braalian]

Anybody who wants a job in fast food can get one within the hour

Nobody who wants to work is out of work

 

[Missouri_Mike]

Sure. That way you can dismiss the plight of the underpaid with maximum smugness.

Nobody is underpaid. Not one single person in the US is underpaid. You’re getting what you’re worth. You may think you deserve more but obviously nobody else agrees. The government can’t fix your worthlessness. You’re still the barely functional idiot working the drive-thru but the government has now priced you out of the job. So now your value has dropped from 10 bucks an hour to nothing. Which the minimum wage has now priced your skill level out of any job.

Congrats on Cali for increasing their homeless population.

 

[Missourian]

So these businesses have been operating with surplus workers all along?

It's cost/benefit.

There is a tipping point where the cost of employees vs the cost of automation begins to favor automation.

That point has now been reached.

 

[Missourian]

The line cooks are next on the chopping block...

Your Fast Food Is Already Automated

The founder of Chipotle wants to reinvent lunch using robots. Is that really a reinvention at all?

www.theatlantic.com

 

[OKTexas]

A five year old could have seen this coming. Unfortunately, the people running California aren't as smart as a five year old.

LOL



In response to recent minimum wage increases in California, fast food restaurants across the state are shifting to automation to get rid of wage-earning humans.

The move to making customers place orders at digital kiosks alleviates what owners say is the financial strain of rising labor costs after the minimum wage for the state’s fast food workers increased on April 1 from $16 to $20 per hour.

Harsh Ghai, a Burger King franchise owner who manages 140 outlets along the West Coast, is leading the transition to automation. He plans to introduce digital kiosks across all his restaurants within months — a drastic acceleration from his original timeline of five to 10 years.

I refuse to use those damn machines, they'll either take my order or I'll take my money somewhere that will.

.

 

[cnm]

Nobody is underpaid.

Lol. From the society that operates as a feeding frenzy, letting the scraps drift to the bottom, homeless.

They say it's a Christian country, too. I'm sure they're right, it fits with what I've seen about most Christians.

 

[Dragonlady]

I read about the Burger King guy..... I suspected at the time the reason he said years was to keep the CA .gov off his back but the tech guy interviewing him said it could be done in all his stores in less than a year.

It also serves to limiting inside dining space.....That's something else that will be the next to go.....It's already gone in some stores.....Why pay people to clean-up after nasty patrons.

The next thing to go will be the sky stores because no one will patronize them.

 

[krichton]

A five year old could have seen this coming. Unfortunately, the people running California aren't as smart as a five year old.

LOL



In response to recent minimum wage increases in California, fast food restaurants across the state are shifting to automation to get rid of wage-earning humans.

The move to making customers place orders at digital kiosks alleviates what owners say is the financial strain of rising labor costs after the minimum wage for the state’s fast food workers increased on April 1 from $16 to $20 per hour.

Harsh Ghai, a Burger King franchise owner who manages 140 outlets along the West Coast, is leading the transition to automation. He plans to introduce digital kiosks across all his restaurants within months — a drastic acceleration from his original timeline of five to 10 years.

I hate to bust your narrative, but these kiosks are literally in every mcdonalds around the world now, and they're in countries with extremely low wages for employees. For instance, in china, employees are paid less than 75 cents an hour at mcDs. Chain restaurants are using them because they're convenient for customers and they're efficient. The days of having a small army of real people man cashiers and taking your order is over, and so is having a worker build your car instead of a robot. This would have happened even if ppl were making $9/hr.

 

[pknopp]

Raising lowest bottom wages causes multiple harms. A more mature solution is to be educated and work your way past those low level jobs and into a proportionate wage reality

That was an option back before business sent many of the good jobs overseas to increase "shareholder value".

How many thousands and thousands of jobs did we lose over that?

 

[initforme]

One can grow a business without hiring others.

 

[DBA]

So these businesses have been operating with surplus workers all along?

Not surplus, it’s just not necessarily cost effective nor prudent to replace a lower paid worker with a higher cost(initial) kiosk that also has some downsides as compared with a person. There is a tipping point where it makes more sense to pay for the kiosks and tolerate the disadvantages. It seems as though the min. wage in CA reached that tipping point. This is exactly why the government shouldn’t be involved, but Democrats are pretty slow so…

 

[DBA]

I hate to bust your narrative, but these kiosks are literally in every mcdonalds around the world now, and they're in countries with extremely low wages for employees. For instance, in china, employees are paid less than 75 cents an hour at mcDs. Chain restaurants are using them because they're convenient for customers and they're efficient. The days of having a small army of real people man cashiers and taking your order is over, and so is having a worker build your car instead of a robot. This would have happened even if ppl were making $9/hr.

I agree with this to some extent, but higher wages most certainly accelerate the move. There are still some advantages of having a physical person to take orders, but not enough of advantage to justify a $20 min. wage, plus all the other costs involved with employees.

Automation is here to stay.

 

[krichton]

I agree with this to some extent, but higher wages most certainly accelerate the move. There are still some advantages of having a physical person to take orders, but not enough of advantage to justify a $20 min. wage, plus all the other costs involved with employees.

Automation is here to stay.

The kiosks have been around for 20 years now. They were introduced when minimum wage was extremely low. We're probably talking mid $6/hr in California. I think they're probably just cheaper to make and install now so more franchisees are using them. And yes there's an added benefit of not hiring an extra person at $20/hr but even an employee making 2003 wages wouldn't stand a chance. These machines are just a few k each.

 

[frigidweirdo]

A five year old could have seen this coming. Unfortunately, the people running California aren't as smart as a five year old.

LOL



In response to recent minimum wage increases in California, fast food restaurants across the state are shifting to automation to get rid of wage-earning humans.

The move to making customers place orders at digital kiosks alleviates what owners say is the financial strain of rising labor costs after the minimum wage for the state’s fast food workers increased on April 1 from $16 to $20 per hour.

Harsh Ghai, a Burger King franchise owner who manages 140 outlets along the West Coast, is leading the transition to automation. He plans to introduce digital kiosks across all his restaurants within months — a drastic acceleration from his original timeline of five to 10 years.

Then it happens. Inevitable no matter what. Unless people were willing to work for less than the cost of their rent.

 

[Mac-7]

Then it happens. Inevitable no matter what. Unless people were willing to work for less than the cost of their rent.

Its too bad that the higher min wage goes into affect after the biden migrant invasion has flooded the market with millions of hungry foreigners that have to be supported

No good can come out of this

 

[krichton]

Then it happens. Inevitable no matter what. Unless people were willing to work for less than the cost of their rent.

One machine can cost as little as 3k and as much as 8k. I have no idea why there's such a huge difference in price, but either number is head and shoulders cheaper than hiring employees on slave wages to man the cashiers for 10 hours a day 365 days a year much less at $20/hr! This really has nothing to do with the wage hike.

 

[frigidweirdo]

One machine can cost as little as 3k and as much as 8k. I have no idea why there's such a huge difference in price, but either number is head and shoulders cheaper than hiring employees on slave wages to man the cashiers for 10 hours a day 365 days a year much less at $20/hr! This really has nothing to do with the wage hike.

Of course. The inevitable is that simple jobs for low paid workers are going to be jobs that are easy to give to robots to do.

 

[sparky]

The line cooks are next on the chopping block...

Automation is here to stay.

skynet is calling.........~S~

 

[Independent thinker]

A five year old could have seen this coming. Unfortunately, the people running California aren't as smart as a five year old.

LOL



In response to recent minimum wage increases in California, fast food restaurants across the state are shifting to automation to get rid of wage-earning humans.

The move to making customers place orders at digital kiosks alleviates what owners say is the financial strain of rising labor costs after the minimum wage for the state’s fast food workers increased on April 1 from $16 to $20 per hour.

Harsh Ghai, a Burger King franchise owner who manages 140 outlets along the West Coast, is leading the transition to automation. He plans to introduce digital kiosks across all his restaurants within months — a drastic acceleration from his original timeline of five to 10 years.

Seems like every policy the left does to help the poor, etc always backfires and actually makes things worse for them. It happens time and time again.