@TBPInvictus here:
Last year finished with a flourish. The work I do here was directly responsible for the Hoover Institution retracting six (yes, 6) of its articles. Whether it was shoddy data analysis or a deliberate attempt to misinform, I found it offensive and brought the receipts as to the fundamental errors in the economic analysis.
Most of the retractions concerned California’s April 1, 2024, increase in the minimum wage for “quick-serve restaurants” (QSR, also known as fast-food) workers, which went from $16/hr to $20/hr. On cue, conservative heads exploded en masse, just as they did a decade ago when Seattle raised its minimum wage.
Let’s put California’s QSR employment in a broader context.
QSR, or limited-service restaurant employment is represented by NAICS code 722513. You’ve got your Starbucks, Mickey D’s, Yum Brands, Wendys, etc. One way I thought I might examine California’s QSR employment is by comparing it to that of a comparable large state, such as Texas.
Here is NAICS code 722513 for California and Texas, indexed to 100 as of January 2013. The data come from BLS’ Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, or QCEW, widely regarded as among the most accurate of BLS’ datasets:
What we see is that QSR employment growth between the two states moved in lock step for seven years, from Jan 2013 right up to the beginning of Covid. The correlation between January 2013 and pre-Covid peak of March 2020 is 0.994. When Covid struck, the two states went their separate ways in dealing with it, California choosing to protect its citizenry and Texas not so much. Doubters are invited to review the death rates for the two states (via CDC):
California QSR employment took a bigger hit and has been slower to recover, but lost far fewer people to Covid. Trade offs, I suppose.
