As of Jan. 1, the hourly minimum wage rose to $16.85 in the city of San Diego and to $16 in the rest of San Diego County and California.
It’s a modest raise compared to last year's increase. In both cases, wages are up roughly 50 cents this year, but Jerry’s Street Churros co-owner Tom Ta said any raise affects business.
He’s looking into robot arms to make bubble tea drinks and to reduce employee hours.
“It's definitely a big impact and we are required to restructure, retrain,” Ta said.
On April 1, a far more impactful wage hike will take place, boosting the hourly pay of California’s fast food workers to $20 an hour.
For Oceanside resident Lucia Juarez, it’s great news. She currently works for minimum wage in the local flower industry.
“I think it's very good. I would like to change jobs because $20 an hour, well, that's quite a bit of money,” she told KPBS in Spanish. “Because we always have expenses to pay, rent especially is quite expensive, and mainly food is very expensive."
Caroline Freund, dean of the UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy, said the upcoming fast food raises could have ripple effects on other industries and consumer prices.
“It’s not clear that it makes sense to do minimum wage by industry,” the economist said. “Especially for fast food, where you could end up pulling people out of more necessary industries like health care or agriculture or sanitary services.”
Cosmos Burger Owner Eren Unur is planning for those ripple effects already. He said small businesses like his own will feel the pinch as he plans to raise wages and stay competitive.
“You know it's a lot of franchising — like McDonalds, In-N-Out. They can afford to pay $20, but not us, the small businesses," Unur said. "If they can do the same job over there for $20, who am I going to pay $16 to $18 to make a burger?"
The April 1 wage hike applies to all fast food chains with 60 or more locations nationwide.
