Gov. Newsom Touts Misleading UC Berkeley Study on California’s $20 Fast Food Wage

California has such an absurdly high cost of living that some misguided lawmakers think increasing the minimum wage will offset nearly $1 million median home prices, $7.00-per-gallon gas prices, and $500 – $1,000 monthly electricity bills.

The minimum wage was increased to $30-per-hour in Los Angeles. Given how the $20 fast food wage has played out so disastrously, and how the Los Angeles hotel industry is already reporting a 6% job cut due to the $30 minimum wage hike, any other counties considering economic suicide need to rethink falsely inflating the minimum wage.

Governor Gavin Newsom and the state’s Democrat lawmakers increased the minimum wage for fast food workers to $20-per-hour, resulting in more than 36,000 fast food jobs cut, food price increases and hours cut for existing workers.

Rather than acknowledge this economic reality and adjust accordingly, Gov. Newsom doubles down on stupid, and does it in public for all to see.

NEW STUDY REFUTES MAGA MELTDOWN: 2-year study finds California’s Fast Food min wage increase:

✅ Significantly increased worker pay.

✅ Led to modest price increases (6 cents on a $4 item).

✅ DID NOT reduce employment in the fast food sector.

— Governor Newsom Press Office (@GovPressOffice) April 1, 2026

Not so fast Gavin.

Not long after the $20 fast food minimum wage went into effect in California, a study by the Berkeley Research Group found that menu prices increased immediately by 14.5% due to the $20 wage hike.

By June 2025, Federal Data revealed that California lost over 36,000 fast food jobs. Specifically, 36,565 fast food jobs were lost since September 2023, when the $20 per hour minimum wage law, AB 1228, was signed into law.

An Employment Policies Institute survey found that a majority of restaurants said they had raised menu prices (98%), reduced employee hours (89%), limited employee shift pick-up or overtime opportunities (73%) and reduced staff or consolidated positions (70%) as a result of the minimum wage law;

The study Newsom touts in his absurd X post is UC Berkeley’s union-funded Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, which is downplaying the impacts felt by Californians (totally different from the Berkeley Research Group).

Imagine the phone call from the governor’s office to UC Berkeley…  the governor approves UC funding.

As EPI reported, “Data from the U.S. Department of Labor Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS) shows totals given since 2005. The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) tops the list with over $673,000 given to UC labor centers – a
union that began the ‘Fight for $15’ campaign that has pushed for $15 minimum wage legislation, and now higher, across the country.”

It appears that the SEIU is looking hungrily at fast food workers are their next targeted industry for unionization.

The Employment Policies Institute reports on the latest UC Berkeley Institute for Research on Labor and Employment study:

In the latest report, authors Michael Reich and Denis Sosinskiy claim California’s wage hike from $16 to $20 for fast food workers starting April 1, 2024 did not lower employment. But the analysis is rife with red flags:

• The introduction to the paper touts Governor Gavin Newsom’s misleading use of monthly preliminary job estimates, which are based on a small survey sample and are routinely revised after the fact. His claims that California was adding jobs were debunked by the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) – which found California had lost tens of thousands of jobs a year after the law. (p2) The report looks at “the policy in its first year,” (p3) but even more recent data confirms regardless of peak times of year – every month has lower fast food employment than a year before since before the law was signed by Governor Newsom in September 2023.

• It uses imprecise cell phone location data as a second claim that California’s wage hike did not cause employment losses. The authors cite something called ADVAN data, comprised of users who opt into cell phone tracking, and tracks the frequency of these users spending four or more hours in the vicinity of a fast food restaurant. There are significant issues with pinpointing foot traffic at a desired location, which can be lumped in with other nearby locations due to ADVAN’s system for mapping geographic data. This makes it difficult to tell what foot traffic can be attributed to a fast food restaurant versus another nearby business. This has been found to be the case in places like strip malls, which typically include fast food restaurants. (p9)
• Data mapping issues aside, the ADVAN data has other problems: Users cannot take into account the reason for visiting a particular location or business, and while customers would be less likely to stay at a fast food restaurant for four hours, it is impossible to differentiate, for example, a student utilizing free wifi and ready-made food for an extended study session from an employee on shift. It would also be impossible to differentiate employees affected by the $20 wage hike versus managers and employees on other pay scales. (p9)
• It continues to use UberEats platform as a proxy for brick-and-mortar restaurant prices. As detailed in a previous EPI report, UberEats pricing is often different from store pricing for customers, including app commission fees, peak pricing, and restaurants adjusting prices to account for these extra factors. Therefore, it is unclear how prices from the platform respond to economic or policy changes. In addition, it excludes any restaurant that does not use third-party apps like UberEats – which could range from smaller chains to In-N-Out (as noted by the authors). (p10) As an example, see below the price of ordering a Starbucks Cold Brew on the Uber Eats app (before fees) and on the Starbucks app for the same location.

As the Globe reported in March, a new and far more accurate paper from economists at UC Santa Cruz confirmed what the Employment Policies Institute (EPI) has been warning from the start–these drastic wage hikes will hurt workers by costing jobs, increasing inflation, and increasing automation of employee tasks.

UC Santa Cruz Economics Lecturer Stephen Owen set out to conduct an independent investigation, with help from a team of undergraduate researchers.

The new findings serve as a warning to lawmakers and advocates across the country pushing for $25 and $30 an hour minimum wage laws, which will only result in even more economic decline.

The UC Santa Cruz economics team found that greater labor costs to businesses are creating less demand for workers.

The researchers studied the records for Burger King locations of at least one franchise owner in coastal markets, which reported a more than 21% decline in shift work for employees from October 2023 to October 2024.

Across 18 McDonald’s franchise locations in the Central Valley, total labor hours declined by nearly 12% across equal 12-month periods from April 2023 to March 2025, equivalent to a loss of 62 full time jobs for a year.

Economist Owen says this is an expected impact, based on economic theory.

“A National Bureau of Economic Research paper in July 2025 found the law had slashed more than 18,000 fast food jobs,” EPI says. In their latest installment, Reich and Sosinskiy attempt to downplay this finding, saying this conclusion isn’t valid because the full-service industry has seen employment fall.”

“…the rate of employment losses has been largest in fast food since the $20 law began. In fact by the end of 2025, EPI found California’s lost jobs totalled almost 20,000. Another EPI analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data found the median California fast food employee lost 7 weeks of scheduled work hours after the $20 wage went into place.”

As EPI concludes, “It doesn’t take too much math to see the $20 fast food wage has backfired on California’s workers, restaurants, and residents.”

And the $20 fast food wage has backfired on the Governor.