SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) — With just days away from California beginning to implement its new $20 minimum wage requirement for fast food workers, some are celebrating the pay bump but others worry how it will impact businesses as whole.
As of now, the minimum wage for the City of San Diego is $16.85. For the County of San Diego, along with the rest of the state, the minimum wage stands at $16.00.
Come next Monday, local fast food employees in the city will get a $3.15 raise, while the rest of the county will see an additional $4.00 added on to their hourly pay.
Rolling into the drive-thru at the Kearny Mesa Jack in the Box along Clairemont Mesa Blvd., you’ll find Glaicie Vasquez. At the start of next month, she and other employees across San Diego will be cashing in quite the hike in pay.
The changes stem around AB 1228, a new law in the state of California serving up a minimum wage which puts fast food workers from Eureka to San Ysidro under the highest guaranteed base salary in the industry.
“I’m a little excited, I really don’t know what to expect but it is something good I’m sure,” Vasquez said.
The new wage hike is required for restaurants that fall under a certain list of criteria in which all must be met. According to the California Department of Industrial Relations, the restaurant must be a “limited-service restaurant.” That means customers order and pay for their food and beverage items upfront before they consume the product.
The restaurant must also be part of a chain of at least 60 establishments nationwide.
“An establishment is a single restaurant location offering food or beverages to customers. Business locations performing only administrative, warehouse, or food preparation work are not counted as ‘establishments’ toward the 60-establishment minimum,” said the state’s DIR website.
The establishment must also primarily focus on selling food and drinks for “immediate consumption.”
According to FOX 5’s and KUSI’s legal analyst Wendy Patrick, while what seems like good news for employees at the surface, the outcome could be more salty than sweet.
“Who will it really benefit? That’s the bottom line,” Patrick said. “For employers, layoffs loom large for those that have to cut costs…How much can they outsource whether it’s to another person or another machine?”
For Vasquez, she says with any give comes some take, and while a raise is on the horizon, she worries her full-time gig may take a part time cut.
How much can they outsource the slack, because they can’t just raise food prices for every customer. Nobody’s going to pay it.”
Wendy Patrick, FOX 5 and KUSI Legal Analyst
“We’re going to have to work more harder to keep our hours up if we’re going to get paid…like, oh you better keep up your work ethic or you’re not going to get enough hours,” Vasquez said.
Part of the law includes the implementation of a Fast-Food Council: an initiative designed to continue the trend of raising the industry minimum pay standard for the years to come.