According to Gov. Gavin Newsom, California's controversial minimum wage hike has added about 11,000 jobs to the state's economy. However, celebrity chef Andrew Gruel cleared the air of what he called the governor's latest "self-congratulatory propaganda."
"It's a little early to put the book on the shelf and kind of take the victory lap here. This is typical Gavin Newsom self-congratulatory propaganda based on questionable data," Gruel argued, Thursday, during an appearance on "Varney & Co."
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"These aren't even seasonally adjusted numbers, number one. Number two, he's using nine or 10 months. And really, it's only been three months in this data in which the bill actually took effect. So, you can cut those numbers down to like 5 or 6,000, which, in a grand scheme of 750,000 jobs, isn't a huge number," the chef explained, who currently owns five restaurants, one being located in California.
Gruel continued to dismantle Newsom's claim, arguing that even if his highly touted data points are accurate, his policy will continue to have "unintended consequences."
"Number one, the first thing that these multi-unit restaurants did when they found out about this bill was they took people who were working overtime, so anything over 40 hours, and they cut their hours down to 25 or 30. Those people went and got other jobs. They split positions. So instead of having one person working, say, 55 or 60 hours, they're having two people work 30 hours or 32 hours, making it a full time job," he explained.
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Newsom hiked the state's minimum wage to $20 an hour in April of this year. Since the policy has taken effect, Gruel argues that the shiny new policy has had unanticipated outcomes that have continued to plague the struggling food industry.
The celebrity chef revealed that this past April, his restaurants were "flooded" with people who were looking for a second job, and that his businesses have been continuously inundated in the months since.
Gruel continued to deconstruct Newsom's baiting statistics surrounding the state's job economy.
"What we didn't look at was the fact that full service restaurants went down significantly. So, you raise the fast food jobs maybe by 6,000 or 7,000, but full-service restaurants were also closing. Well, why is that? Because I said from the very beginning, that this $20 an hour mandate is not just for restaurants with 20-plus locations in the fast food sector," Gruel concluded.
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"By targeting such a huge sector of the industry, you're artificially increasing it without a mandate. But it really is a mandate for every single restaurant and specifically full service. This is crushing the industry all around. But we also haven't seen the data play out yet."
