California Governor Gavin Newsom is embroiled in another major scandal.
He’s learning a painful lesson about the consequences of socialism.
And Mike Rowe gave Gavin Newsom a reality check about work that left him speechless.
California Governor Gavin Newsom is wrapped up in a scandal for giving one of his billionaire donors an exemption to a minimum wage law for fast food workers.
Billionaire Greg Flynn – the largest restaurant franchisee in the country – personally lobbied Newsom to stop a law in California’s State Legislature that raised the minimum wage for fast workers in the state to $20 an hour.
Flynn owns more than two dozen Panera Bread franchises throughout California and has been a major campaign donor to Newsom.
Newsom’s office lobbied California lawmakers to secure an exemption for any fast-food restaurant that has an onsite bakery and sells bread as a standalone item.
Flynn could save hundreds of thousands of dollars a year by not having to pay the new higher fast food minimum wage.
Mike Rowe says the Panera scandal is a bad look for Newsom
How America Works host Mike Rowe said that Greg Flynn and Gavin Newsom learned a lesson about the “unintended consequences” of California’s fast food minimum wage during an appearance on Fox Business.
“The market’s a powerful thing,” Rowe said. “And if you’re suddenly the only guy who isn’t paying $20 an hour, and you’re looking at a finite pool of people who want to work in the fast food industry, well, who’s going to apply for a job with you?”
Flynn announced that he would voluntarily raise Panera’s starting wage to $20 an hour after it became apparent the scandal wasn’t going to disappear.
Rowe said that the billionaire “had to” raise Panera’s wage because of pressure from the scandal.
“It was a bad look for the Governor. I think it’s a bad look for Panera,” Rowe said. “But mostly, again, I’ll come back to unintended consequences.”
Rising wages for fast food workers means more automation
California and other states hiking the minimum wage is going to have unintended consequences according to Rowe.
“Unions are fraught with them, minimum wage is fraught with it, rent control,” Rowe explained. “There’s always a price to pay for doing a short-term thing that looks and feels good to do and say.”
Rising labor costs are causing restaurants to look at automating more of their operations in response.
“Kiosks are going to replace low-wage workers. AI is going to have a voice in this,” Rowe said. “And a Quarter Pounder with cheese is going to be a heck of a lot more expensive. This is a lesson that we seem determined to learn over and over and over again.”
California is going to learn a painful lesson about the unintended consequences of hiking the minimum wage.
