One year has passed since 400,000 California workers at fast food chains like McDonald’s and Taco Bell began earning $20 per hour — a special minimum wage that’s thrilled employees and unions but remains vehemently opposed by the restaurant industry, which argues the higher pay has come at a cost of thousands of jobs.
Romualda Alcazar Cruz, 51, preps sandwiches and burgers at a Wendy’s restaurant on International Boulevard in East Oakland. Cruz, who has worked in fast food for seven years, used to earn the old minimum wage of $16.50 per hour.
That is, until April 2024, when a hotly-contested California law went into effect that spiked the earnings floor to $20 per hour for workers at 25,000 fast food restaurants, including the chains Wendy’s, In-N-Out Burger, Chipotle and Starbucks…