SOUTHLAND – (INT) - If you’re paying more for your burger or chicken strips, it’s likely because many California fast food workers just got a big pay raise.

Most are getting 20-dollars-an-hour as of Monday (April 1st) when a new law kicked in. It gives more financial security to an historically low-paying profession while threatening to raise prices in a state already known for its high cost of living.

Democrats in the state Legislature passed the law last year in part as an acknowledgement that many of the more than 500,000 people who work in fast food restaurants are not teenagers earning some spending money, but adults working to support their families.

Recently, the personal finance outlet FinanceBuzz collected and compared several major fast food chain’s prices over the past decade — to find which fast food restaurants raised prices the most. Price increases were also compared against the overall inflation of the same time period, which was a 31% rise in the cost of goods since 2014.

Here’s the rate of inflation at fast food restaurants seen since 2014:

• McDonald’s — 100%
• Popeyes — 86%
• Taco Bell — 81%
• Chipotle — 75%
• Jimmy John’s — 62%
• Arby’s, Burger King, Chick-fil-A and Wendy’s — 55%
• Panera — 54%
• Subway and Starbucks — 39%

As FinanceBuzz explains, over the past 10 years, prices at the restaurants studied grew at nearly double the national rate of inflation. In the case of the first five chains that ranked at the top, prices increased at more than double — and McDonald’s prices grew more than three times —the national rate of inflation.

Story Date: April 1, 2024