Grinberg: On Fast Food and Minimum Wage

Monday, October 16, 2023 | 0

As we all know, temporary disability benefits are based on average weekly wages as laid out in Labor Code Section 4453, typically taken at the time of injury. 

Gregory Grinberg

Postinjury increases in earnings can typically increase the AWW calculation.

So, why am I bothering you with things you already know? Well, Gov. Gain Newsom has signed into law Assembly Bill 1228, which has, among other effects, plans to set the minimum wage for fast food restaurant employees at $20 per hour, effective April 1, 2024. 

So, what does that mean? The current minimum wage in San Francisco, for example, is $18.07, so an employee of a qualifying fast food restaurant with a date of injury of  March 15, 2024, might calculate TTD based on $18.07 per hour for a certain number of average hours worked. But now, effective April 1, the new hourly rate would be $20 per hour.

Here’s a good formula to use to figure out the new AWW: $20 (new minimum wage) / $X (pre-April 1 hourly rate) = Y. Y x old AWW = new AWW.

So, we will all need to watch that date to see which of our TD rates will need to go up.  We will also need to thank Gov. Newsom and the good folks of Sacramento for, again, increasing the cost of operating in California and making both automation and abandonment of the state that much more economically viable.

Gregory Grinberg is managing partner of the Tobin Lucks office in Burlingame and a certified specialist in workers’ compensation law. This post is reprinted with permission from Grinberg’s WCDefenseCA blog.