[xp84]

It will likely play out exactly like California’s disastrous special $20/hr fast food minimum wage[1]: a near immediate reduction in the number of people employed. They replaced a couple of $20/hr workers that were present taking orders with $3000 kiosks that run for $0.10/hour of electricity. And chains also closed locations whose fiscal viability were already close to the line, since “the line” jumped.

I don’t really blame the drivers for trying, I just think it’s probably not a viable long-term career, unfortunately.

[1] except of course if you’re Panera, coincidentally owned by a Newsom friend/donor. Good ol’ Bake-bread-on-premises exception!

[roboror]

The fast-food worker being replaced by a kiosk is inevitable and not limited to California, but even the kiosk is mostly transitory and destined to be largely replaced by a phone app.

[bakies]

Didn't those kiosks go everywhere? Part of the reason I get fast food less

[VanTheBrand]

Except that’s not how it played out at all! Fast Food employment did not go down but wages did go up 11%.

Prices of food went up 1.5%, which covered half the wage increase, and the employers ate (pun intended) the other half of the cost.

Here is the study by UC Berkeley from this April

https://irle.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Effects...

[opo]

Other papers have found both employment losses and more significant price increases. A discussion of the topic was in the Ask Economics subreddit:

https://old.reddit.com/r/AskEconomics/comments/1smjx29/was_c...