California is set to raise minimum wage for fast food workers.

<div class="block">New York and California are raising the minimum wage for fast food workers. Out west, the rate will start at $20 per hour beginning in April. Meanwhile, New York will increase rates to $18 per hour starting next month. </div>

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California Raises Wage for Fast Food Workers

And a new law in California will set the minimum wage for fast food workers at $20 an hour starting April of next year. Meanwhile, in New York City, people who work for app based delivery services will get paid $18 per hour starting next month for more on where we stand on minimum wage across the country. Let's bring in our new senior reporter Michelle Castillo. So Michelle, how will this rate increase affect people who work in the fast food and delivery industry? These changes should help fast food and delivery workers make a decent wage considering the price of everything has been going up. So according to the Bureau of Labor statistics, fast food workers across the nation make about $13.52 an hour. That's about $28,130 a year. It's especially important considering that there were more than 5.4 0.5 million jobs in this sector in America last year alone, many of these jobs don't require formal education, meaning truly anyone can apply. And in California, specifically, about 550,000 people are employed in the fast food industry. 80% of those people are minorities and two thirds are women. And although there's a stereotype that a lot of these are high school workers, the vast majority of fast food workers in California were the primary income earners for their family. So these wages increases will make a difference. Currently California has a minimum wage of $15.50. So that will be about a 29% increase in a similar vein in New York at based food delivery workers for companies like Grubhub Uber or doordash, they were making about $11 an hour on average. And New York City's minimum wage is $15. And if New York City's minimum wage is $15 like you mentioned, how are food delivery workers making just $11 on average? Well, it's because while there are standards for minimum wage in most states, in an overarching federal law, it doesn't cover all businesses. So across the nation, the federal minimum wage is $7.25. But this doesn't cover many jobs including commissioned employees, people in unions and many outside contractors tipped minimum wage workers. For example, they have actually a federal minimum rate of just $2.13. And with the gig economy increasing, many people are falling into that bucket of lower minimum wages. On top of that, you have each state having its own rule. So California has one of the highest minimum wages in the nation at $15. New York City, Long Island and Westchester counties in New York have it also set up $15 but the actual New York State minimum wage is lower and some states have set additional rules to cover who might not be covered at the federal level. So for example, let's take Oklahoma, they have a state minimum wage of $7.25. But that only applies to employers with 10 or more full time employees at one location. That same company also has gross over $100,000 in annual sales. If not, they can just do a minimum wage of $2 per hour and other states don't even have any guarantees. So, are these wage increases in California and New York City enough to offset the inflation? We're seeing these are two of the most expensive areas to live in. Inflation has caused prices to increase 3.7% for the 12 months that ended this past August. And that's according to the US Bureau of Labor statistics, it is slowing down from 2022 levels, but for salaries haven't adjusted to meet those massive increases from last year. In fact, using consumer price index data and the employment cost index, wages aren't expected to outpace inflation until next year. So on top of that, the federal minimum wage rate hasn't increased since 2009. And if you factor in inflation that $7.25 actually lost about 12% of its value. Since then across the nation, unions are going on strike with wage increases being one of their top points. Many of them are asking for rate increases of 20 to 30%. And if Kaiser Permanente, which I know you mentioned earlier goes on strike this weekend, it will mark the 18th union strike this year alone. That is a lot of strikes this year. Thank you to Michelle Castillo.