Lesvia Arias uses few words to describe the historic increase of 25% to the salary that entered into force last year in California for employees of fast food chains. «It is not enough,» says this 41 -year -old Salvadoran. He has been working for two and a half years in a stood Jack in the Box south of Los Angeles. In the middle of last year they made it assistant to the manager, allowing him to earn almost 22 dollars per hour (about 20 euros). It has an average of a monthly salary of just over $ 3,500. This without counting the complement that an Uber enters the days that does not work in the hamburger restaurant. «I don't know how to be still,» says Arias. At night, when he still gets home with energy, he starts knitting clothes to sell. If the day had more hours, Lesvia would take care of something else. The increase entered into force on April 1 in California, the largest economy in the United States. The date meant a milestone for the negotiations initiated in 2022, when the local legislature and the Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, approved a minimum of $ 22 for the fast food sector. An intense lobby of the companies forced a downward negotiation that set the floor at $ 20 per hour worked, four dollars above the then state minimum. The measure benefited nine out of ten workers among the 750,000 in these restaurants, most of them black and Latinos. Some establishments had not increased wages since 2009. The climb only affects national chains with more than 60 branches. But it caused an intense debate between the unions, who were pushing the measure for several years, and the companies and the owners of the franchises of the national fast food chains. These booked a dark panorama after the slow recovery of the pandemic. The first balance was announced just five months of the increase. «We found that the measure rose on average by paying an 18% notable time without reducing employment,» a couple of economists from the universities of Berkeley and Davis, of left, said in an academic article in September. The companies described the partial report and asked Stephen Bronars, an economist from the University of Chicago and the main partner of the firm Edgeworth Economics. This concluded that the initiative has stopped the growth of the sector due to the dismissal of between 9,600 and 19,300 workers in the first six months of adjustment. Bronars estimates that the climb led to a dead end the debate on the minimum in the progressive bastion. The State rejected in November through a referendum, known as proposition 32, a generalized increase of 9.1% (at 18 dollars), in force since 2025, which had to be adopted by every employer with more than 26 workers. 50.7% voted not in what is the first refusal to a salary increase since 1996 in California. Despite the vote, the end point of the discussion has not arrived. “On April 1 we were victims of a discriminatory attack that raised the minimum. How can this be fair? We fit an increase of four dollars when in the rest of the state it was 0.50 cents, «says Harris Liu, son of Asian immigrants, who has 18 McDonald's in the Sacrament In 2025). Modesto, of 3.7%, about 15 cents in a four -dollar hamburger. The unions underline that eight of the nine owners of fast food chains have registered two digit increases in their income from the pandemic. «That is about 2,000 dollars less for employee a year, where do we get them from?» «Many of them have had to take a second job,» says the businessman, who offers as benefits of English classes, retirement fund and legal advice to process citizenship. This entrepreneur, along with many others, is in the middle of an intense campaign to stop a new climb to the salary. Liu recently told the difficulties of his situation to the Fast Food Council of California, an agency created with the legislation and formed by employees, owners of employees, owners and officials. This of Los Angeles said the measure caused something «never seen before.» “We let 30 people go. And in October we opened a second restaurant, where we had half of the sales we thought about the prices we set. We simply did not have enough demand and cut 50 employees of 100 positions. In short, it is a dismissal of 80 people, ”he said via telephone. Restaurantes said in a letter that 70% of fast food establishments in the entity have fired staff. His demand, made public to Governor Newsom, is a cry for help: «We simply cannot survive another increase to salary.» Continue reading