November 6, 2025 1:22PM # More Evidence on the Minimum Wage By [Jeffrey Miron](https://www.cato.org/people/jeffrey-miron) --- SHARE Listen to this article Generated with [ ElevenLabs](https://elevenlabs.io/) AI technology. Loading the [Elevenlabs Text to Speech](https://elevenlabs.io/text-to-speech) AudioNative Player... States and cities never seem to tire of hiking their minimum wages, with [predictable effects:](https://www.cato.org/research-briefs-economic-policy/did-californias-fast-food-minimum-wage-reduce-employment) > On April 1, 2024, California raised its minimum wage from $16 to $20 per hour for fast-food workers employed at chains with more than 60 locations nationwide.… This was one of the largest one-time minimum wage increases in US history, and one of the few focused on a single industry in recent decades. > > Our findings reveal that employment in California’s fast-food sector declined by 2.7 percent between September 2023 and September 2024 relative to fast-food employment elsewhere in the United States.… Our median estimate suggests that California lost about 18,000 jobs that could have been retained if AB 1228 had not been passed. If a society wishes to redistribute income, it should redistribute income via a negative income tax. Interfering with market wages generates counterproductive results. ##### Related Tags [Economics](https://www.cato.org/economics), [Regulation](https://www.cato.org/regulatory-studies) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).