[Music] the United States has a patchwork of minimum wage laws Labor Department data shows 20 States pay the federal minimum wage of 725 but workers earn between 8 and $13 in 14 other states the highest minimum wage levels range from $ 13 to $17 those rates Prevail in the District of Columbia and 16 States including California where fast food workers will now earn $20 an hour above the state's minimum Carter Evans has more details Anisha Williams a homeless mother of six just got a big pay Boost
from her job at Jack In The Box the day is finally here after years of battling business owners workers at California fast food restaurants with 60 or more locations will now be paid at least $20 an hour that amounts to a 25% jump from the state's minimum wage overnight what is the raise mean for you and your family hope but it's not good news for everyone real world impacts are already being seen businesses are potentially looking at reducing hours laying off employees are your employees worri
ed that their hours might get cut they're already seeing it happen unfortunately Alex Johnson is a franchise owner of five Cinnabons and five anti-n Pretzel shops in the Bay Area we've already raise prices anywhere from 10 to 15 % over those last three years but we're looking to do the same same again now with this wage increase he says a pretzel that cost $3.99 in 2019 will soon cost $7 even at Jack In The Box where Anisha Williams Works menu prices could soon rise up to 8% a small price to pay
she says for a lifechanging wage increase do you think this race could help you finally find a place to live um I'm really crossing my fingers my toes and whatever else but yes I believe that it can it can help it's a start some restaurant owners tell me the higher wages are causing them to look into automating more aspects of the business like ordering from a kiosk and even robots that can flip Burgers John Carter Evans thank you for more on what wage changes mean for the industry and Californ
ians we're joined by economy and labor journalist Margo Roosevelt Margo it's good to see you not all states have the same cost of living so help us put the minimum wage in context for us in the in life in California in California the price of housing has gone absolutely through the roof it's 39% higher than the uh rest of the country and so no wonder you have uh so many homeless in California 181,000 people are homeless in California and many of them are living in their cars and whole families a
re living in their cars and it's just a a tragic situation so wages are not high enough to support people and so F fast food workers in particular in California would they then be considered and maybe even with this new minimum wage um bump essentially in the category of what's often referred to as the Working Poor in California fast food workers are twice as likely to be living in poverty than any other workers and at the same time the fast food industry has been increasing its profits and incr
easing its prices so the economists who study the fast food industry say that they can well afford to pay more and what about the franchise owners like the one in in Carter evans's piece they say their profits are dwindling and they're going to have to either raise prices hire robots or um or Shrink um the number of employees um is the is the feeling well what's the what's the feeling about those kinds of reactions well the fact is that the fast food industry has been increasing its prices over
the last 10 years it's increased its prices by 46% compared to 28% for the for other Industries so they have really um been profiteering over the last decade and in fact even last year the top 10 uh firms uh fast food firms um spent $6 billion dollar on stock BuyBacks now that that's money that goes into the pockets of shareholders and Executives not into the pockets of the working uh poor who are um at these franchises so really um we're in a situation where you cannot you haven't been able to
earn a living wage at a fast food restaurant and that's what the um new law is trying to change and finally Margo the California's also established a something called a fast food Council that recently met for the first time who's on the council and uh and what are its goals so there are nine members of this Council and they represent both employers and franchises and workers and Advocates and they're looking at um not just wages but also at working conditions and the sad thing for many fast food
workers is that they really don't have any voice in haven't had any voice in the working conditions so if you're a fast food worker and you experience sexual harassment or if you're burned when you're trying to make your hamburger or if you know uh or if you're retaliated by your boss at by your boss you or if your hours are cut So you you're not able to support your children and and pay for child care you have no recourse and the idea behind this fast food council is that um there will be a pl
ace place where you can raise uh these issues and where you can address the um the the conditions that are in these RIS economy and labor journalist Margo Roosevelt thank you so much Margo thank you
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