One of Newsmax columnist Michael Reagan’s minor obsessions over the past year or so complaining about the rising minimum wage in California, mostly because he has decided that fast-food workers don’t deserve that much money to live on. He complained in an October 2023 column:
Gov. Gavin Newsom, D-Calif. (aka Gov. Gruesome) just scored a big victory for robot manufacturers. He signed into law a bill that guarantees fast food workers will be paid at least $20/hr. This means California now has the highest minimum wage nationally.
The new law won’t cover local mom-and-pop restaurants or small franchises with fewer than 60 locations nationwide.
But that doesn’t mean the effects of the law won’t be felt by small owners.
The upward pressure on wages caused by this law will mean every restaurant where workers don’t rely on tips to supplement their income will have to raise wages to keep current employees and attract new ones.
Forbes calculates the new minimum wage will raise the yearly salary of fast food workers to $41,600 from the current high of $34,530.00.
That’s a lot of money for not much value-added.
Which brings us to the “Wingman.”
Forbes reports, “Nala Robotics has launched a fast food robot that it says can fry chicken wings, French fries, and other foods, season them, and plate them all autonomously. It’s called the ‘Wingman,’ and it’s available to rent for $2,999/month.”
The Wingman will work 24 hours a day, seven days a week:
- It doesn’t get sick
- It doesn’t have childcare drama
- It doesn’t want a vacation
And . . . It doesn’t have an attitude.
And right now the Wingman is cheaper than the cost of human employees.
At $15 per hour — just a dollar less than the current California minimum — the Wingman costs 63% less than having a human do the work.
Of course, one reason why fast-food workers might have an attitude is that they don’t get paid enough to live on.
Reagan repeated his praise of the Wingman again in a Sept. 4 column, adding more fearmongering about fast-food workers having the temerity to demand a living wage:
Business Insider reports on another cost–saving option, “Two large Pizza Hut operators in California are laying off all their delivery drivers ahead of a new state law that raises the minimum wage for fast-food workers to $20 per hour.
“The layoffs impact hundreds of Pizza Hut locations across the state including Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, Ventura and San Bernardino counties and Sacramento, and involve more than 1,200 in-house delivery drivers.”
Cause: Legislature arbitrarily raised fast food minimum wage from $16 per hour to at least $20 per hour.
Effect: 1,200 pizza delivery drivers go from wage earners to wage mourners.
And that’s not all.
A second Pizza Hut franchisee is also laying off approximately 841 drivers for the same reason, bringing the total to 2,041.
But Reagan conveniently ignores one crucial detail: Pizza Hut simply outsourced its delivery services to DoorDash, GrubHub and Uber Eats, which would likely have happened whether or not the minimum wage was raised. And as Los Angeles Times columnist Michael HIltzik reported, fast-food employment in California continued to grow even after the minimum-wage hike.
Reagan went on to quote the right-wing New York Post on a California chain closing locations:
“Rubio’s California Grill closed 48 of its nearly 134 locations at the end of May, citing the “rising cost of doing business” in the state for the closures and filed for bankruptcy in June.”
Ask those employees how many benefits the $20 per hour minimum wage brought them.
But as Hiltzik also pointed out, The main issue at Rubio’s is corporate debt, which has continued to grow after the company was acquired by a private equity firm — it even called its debt burden “unsustainable” in its bankruptcy filing.
Reagan hyped this misleading narrative once again in his Nov. 2 column:
The attack on fast-food worker’s livelihoods continues apace in California.
The first attack was the legislature keeps raising the minimum wage for fast-food workers.
Employers have responded by closing outlets and cutting back on employee’s hours.
Now if Donald Trump wins the election, and begins his promised mass deportations, the kitchens in Californian fast-food restaurants may be as vacant as a Kamala Harris victory party.
This may cause real problems.
One job Americans really don’t want to do is frying their own hamburgers and cooking their own fries.
Fortunately, the robot community may be ready to come to our rescue in the absence of illegal immigrants.
Reagan touted a french fry-making robot named Flippy with added sneering: “Flippy never has translation confusion, daycare emergencies, car trouble, parent–teacher meetings and it will work a 24-hour sift without complaint. Plus, Flippy will never ask for an advance on a paycheck.”
Reagan seems unhappy that humans might refuse to work endless 12-hour shifts for slave wages. He concluded with more sneering: “It was a stroke of good fortune for the Trump campaign that he was able to become a McDonalds fry cook this year before robots pushed all the humans out of that part of the kitchen.”
Reagan sounds quite sad about the possibility of Trump being deprived on a partisan photo op. And fast-food restaurants will always fire workers if technology permits, whether or not there was a minimum wage increase.