Minimum Wage Hikes Are Costing California Jobs, Study Says
22nd April 2019
California’s minimum wage increase has cost the state thousands of jobs worth of growth in the state’s booming restaurant industry, according to a recent study by the University of California Riverside.
California passed a bill in 2016 to bring the state’s minimum wage up to $15 an hour. For businesses with more than 25 employees, the state’s minimum wage rose to $12 in January and will hit $15 in January of 2022. Other businesses have until 2023 before the full $15-an-hour minimum takes effect.
If you raise the price of something, people buy less of it. That’s elementary economics, about as elementary as it gets.
Markets work, even when you don’t want them to.