Raphael Stevens

Dick’s Sporting Goods will close a number of Foot Locker stores as it begins to restructure the newly acquired business.
Excluding Foot Locker, Dick’s saw comparable sales rise 5.7% during its fiscal third quarter, well ahead of the 3.6% growth analysts had expected.
The company issued bullish guidance ahead of the holiday shopping season.

A Dick’s Sporting Goods store in Pleasant Hill, California, US, on Monday, Nov. 24, 2025.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Dick’s Sporting Goods is planning to close a slew of Foot Locker stores now that its acquisition of the sneaker company is complete, the company said Tuesday when announcing fiscal third-quarter earnings.  
It’s unclear how many stores Dick’s plans to shutter, but the closures are part of a larger restructuring it’s implementing so Foot Locker isn’t a drag on its profits come fiscal 2026, Dick’s executive chairman Ed Stack told CNBC’s Courtney Reagan. 

“We need to clean out the garage,” said Stack. “We’ve taken pretty aggressive markdowns to clean out old merchandise. We’re impairing some store assets. We’ll close some stores… everything we’re doing is there to protect 2026 and just kind of do this one time.” 
The company declined to say how many stores would be impacted and whether the restructuring will include layoffs.
As a result, Foot Locker’s comparable sales are expected to be down in the mid- to high-single digits in the current quarter with margins expected to fall between 10 and 15 percentage points.
Beyond the Foot Locker business, Dick’s stores saw comparable sales rise 5.7% during the quarter, well ahead of the 3.6% analysts had expected, according to StreetAccount.
For its namesake banner, the company is now expecting comparable sales to rise between 3.5% and 4%, up from its prior range of 2% to 3.5%. That’s ahead of expectations for 3.6% growth, according to StreetAccount. 

Dick’s is also now expecting full-year earnings per share to be between $14.25 and $14.55, up from a previous forecast of $13.90 to $14.50 and in line with expectations of $14.44 per share, according to LSEG. 
Here’s how the big-box sporting goods store performed compared with what Wall Street was anticipating, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG:

Earnings per share: $2.78 adjusted vs. $2.71 expected
Revenue: $4.17 billion vs. $3.59 billion expected

The company’s reported net income for the three-month period that ended Nov. 1 was $75.2 million, or 86 cents per share, compared with $227.8 million, or $2.75 per share, a year earlier. Excluding one-time items including the impact of the Foot Locker acquisition, Dick’s posted earnings per share of $2.78.
Dick’s has been a standout performer across the retail industry and now has the challenge of fixing Foot Locker’s business so it doesn’t weigh on its typically pristine results. 
Dick’s $2.4 billion acquisition of Foot Locker gave it a massive competitive edge in the wholesale sneaker market, most importantly for Nike products, and access to both an international and urban consumer.
It’s also super-charging the company’s growth. Thanks to Foot Locker’s revenue, almost $931 million during the quarter, Dick’s sales rose a staggering 36% to $4.17 billion from $3.06 billion a year earlier.
However, it also acquired some risks. Foot Locker has about 2,400 stores globally and has underperformed for years. Its consumer tends to skew lower-income than Dick’s’ and hasn’t held up as well in a softening economy. 
Under CEO Mary Dillon, Foot Locker had worked to refresh its stores and change the way it merchandises sneakers. Since its acquisition, it began testing changes in 11 stores in North America to see if the fixes improve sales, including cutting products by over 20%, bringing back apparel and changing Foot Locker’s “footwear wall.” 
“If you’d walked into a Foot Locker store before and you looked at the footwear wall … it was nothing but a run on sentence,” said Stack. “It was just a whole bunch of shoes thrown up on the wall, and we took all of that down, we re-merchandised it, focused on shoes we really wanted to sell. … It’s early on, but we’re pretty enthusiastic about what we’ve done.” 
— CNBC’s Courtney Reagan contributed to this report. More

Kohl’s named Michael Bender its permanent CEO.
Bender is the third CEO the department store has had in three years, and the move comes after the company fire ex-CEO Ashley Buchanan only a few months into his tenure.
The chain’s sales have been declining.

Kohl’s said Monday that Michael Bender, who has served as its interim CEO, will become its permanent chief executive as the department store tries to get back to sales growth.
He becomes the third CEO for the department store in about three years. The move is effective as of Sunday.

Bender, who has been director of Kohl’s board since July 2019, became the company’s interim CEO in May. The retailer appointed Bender to the position after firing CEO Ashley Buchanan after just a few months into his tenure.
Kohl’s fired Buchanan after it said a company investigation found that he had pushed for deals with a vendor with whom he had a personal relationship. That person was Chandra Holt, a former retail executive who had a romantic relationship with Buchanan.
Kohl’s leadership announcement comes a day before the retailer reports fiscal third-quarter earnings. Along with leadership turmoil, Kohl’s has struggled with declining sales. The company said in August that it expects net sales to drop by 5% to 6% for the fiscal year.
Kohl’s has had many changes at the top since former CEO Michelle Gass left the company in 2022 to join Levi Strauss & Co., where she later succeeded then-CEO Chip Bergh. She was followed at Kohl’s by Tom Kingsbury, a then-board member of the company, who became interim and then permanent CEO.

Michael Bender named Kohl’s Interim CEO.
Courtesy: Kohl’s

Bender, 64, previously held leadership and management roles at retailers including Victoria’s Secret, Walmart and Eyemart Express. Along with his role as CEO, Bender will continue to serve on the company’s board.

In a news release, board chair John Schlifske said Kohl’s hired an external firm and “conducted a comprehensive search” for the retailer’s new leader. He said Bender is the right person for the job because of his “three decades of leadership experience across retail and consumer goods companies and a deep commitment to the Kohl’s brand.”
“Over the past several months as interim CEO, Michael has proven to be an exceptional leader for Kohl’s – progressively improving results, driving short and long-term strategy, and positively impacting cultural change,” he said.
In a CNBC interview, Bender described Kohl’s turnaround as “heading toward close to the middle innings.”
“For me, that’s a good thing, because it means there’s still good work to be done, and ideas and challenges to bring forward to solve,” he said.
At Kohl’s, he said customers have “a lot of excitement,” but also “a more discerning, choiceful attitude about the dollars they spend.”
“What they’re looking for from retailers is curating assortment for me of quality products at a value that compels me to either get off the couch, or if I want to stay on the couch, to get on my phone and and order from you because they signify value for me,” he said.
Over the past five years, Kohl’s shares have fallen by about 53%. So far this year, its stock is up nearly 12%.
— CNBC’s Courtney Reagan contributed to this report More

Republicans are proposing direct Health Savings Account payments to ACA enrollees rather than extending enhanced premium tax credits.
Congress faces a short window to extend the subsidies before year-end.
The majority of ACA enrollees must sign up by Dec. 15 for 2026 coverage or risk being shut out of the market.
For middle-class enrollees without enhanced tax credits, even high-deductible Bronze level plans could be out of reach in some markets.

An Obamacare sign is displayed outside an insurance agency on Nov. 12, 2025 in Miami, Florida.
Joe Raedle | Getty Images

With enhanced Obamacare tax credits set to expire at the end of the year, Republicans are proposing new alternatives aimed at lowering the cost of health care.
Their window for doing so is rapidly closing — and leaving middle-class Americans uncertain in the balance.

The White House is expected to make an announcement this week addressing efforts to either renew or replace the Affordable Care Act enhanced premium tax credits, according to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. However, MS Now late reported an announcement has been delayed in part due to congressional backlash, according to two White House officials.
The news could not come soon enough for Shana Verstegen and her husband. The couple buys insurance through the ACA exchange and is facing a 50% premium increase for their family plan in 2026 if the enhanced tax credits are not renewed by Congress.
“We have been looking at our expenses, and it’s tough now because everything’s really expensive already,” with little room to cut costs,” said Verstegen, a fitness instructor from Madison, Wisconsin. “We’re looking at a few activities our kids do and things like that.”
Verstegen traveled to Washington during the government shutdown to advocate for extending financial support for middle-class ACA enrollees like her family. Since the government reopened, she’s been watching the discussions on Capitol Hill around so-called Obamacare tax credits warily.
“I’m thrilled that lawmakers are finally at the table and talking about ways to make health care more affordable. What I’m frustrated about is there is less than a month to do something,” she said.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., promised Democrats the chamber would vote on extending the enhanced tax credits in mid-December as part of a deal to end a record-long government shutdown.
Dec. 15 is the deadline for the majority of Americans to sign up for 2026 ACA coverage, and as Congress headed home for the Thanksgiving recess, there was no consensus on Obamacare credit funding or what those subsidies would look like.  

GOP proposes cash payments

Some Republicans in the House signed a bipartisan letter urging Senate leadership to have negotiations that include members from both chambers to find a way to extend the enhanced tax credits for a year. 
The subsidies, enacted during the Covid pandemic, provide aid for middle-class enrollees by capping their portion of premium payments at 8.5% of income. 
The cost of extending the tax credits is more than $30 billion per year, according to the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office.
President Donald Trump has opposed an extension of the Obamacare tax credits that he says fund the “money sucking” insurance industry, stating in a post on his Truth Social platform, “The only healthcare I will support or approve is sending the money directly back to the people.” 
Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., has introduced a bill that would give ACA enrollees cash through a Health Savings Account called a Trump Health Freedom Account, which they could use to pay for both premiums and health expenses. According to the bill, the payments would be effective starting Jan. 1.
The current ACA subsidies are based on mid-tier Silver plans as the benchmark coverage option. Those plans have an average deductible of just over $5,000, according to health policy organization KFF.

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., has proposed making the lower-tier Bronze plan the benchmark for enhanced subsidies, while providing cash to offset the higher Bronze plan deductible. According to KFF, Bronze plan deductibles average more than $7,000.
Cassidy told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Monday his proposal would provide subsidies for the lower-tier plan, limiting out-of-pocket premium costs at levels similar to those under a Biden-era proposal.
“But we’re using a cheaper policy so it’s easier to do,” he explained. “That gives us savings to put into a Health Savings Account.”
Trading down from a benchmark Silver plan to a Bronze plan without the enhanced tax credits would not save enrollees much money.
A 60-year-old couple in Florida earning $86,000, for example, would qualify for a $0 premium on a 2026 Bronze plan with an enhanced tax credit, according to a premium calculator from KFF. Without the credit, the same plan would cost $2,169 per month, or more than $26,000 per year. 

Racing the clock

With Congress out for the Thanksgiving recess, there is less than a month left of the legislative calendar.
Getting an HSA funding measure not only passed but implemented for the start of coverage next year may not be possible, according to Sabrina Corlette, co-director of the Center on Health Insurance Reforms at Georgetown University.
“Conceptually, what they’re talking about is a radical restructuring of how the ACA marketplaces and tax credits work, and we literally are days away from when people have to pay their January premiums in order to effectuate their coverage,” Corlette said.
Oscar Health CEO Mark Bertolini said a national plan in which the government or employers give consumers cash to buy their own coverage in the marketplace is something he supports in the long run, but extending the enhanced tax credits makes the most sense now.
“I think that’s how they’re going to solve this problem, so they get past the midterms, and they have time to put together a fulsome plan,” Bertolini said.

Enrollees face Dec. 15 deadline

Regardless of whether the tax credits are extended, the deadline to sign up for 2026 coverage remains firm for now. For those enrolling on the healthcare.gov exchange, it is just three weeks away. On some state-run exchanges such as those for California and Massachusetts, the deadline is Jan. 31.
Obamacare premiums for 2026 have spiked as insurers expect some enrollees to drop of out of the market, in part because of the uncertainty over the extension of the enhanced premium tax credits.
Oscar Health has been working with insurance brokers to reach out to its members about more affordable plans.
“We believed, out of the people affected by enhanced subsidies, that we could sell to 85% of them. And right now, what we’re seeing says maybe more,” said Bertolini.
KFF’s executive vice president for health policy, Larry Levitt, said enrollees should consider signing up by the Dec. 15 deadline even if Congress does not manage to pass a premium relief measure before the end of the year, because the Trump administration has tightened rules for signing up outside of open enrollment.
“The premiums are still month-to-month, so you’re committing to one month’s premium. If it’s unaffordable, you can always drop out, but you can’t come back in if you don’t sign up,” Levitt said. More

Universal’s “Wicked: For Good” tallied an estimated $150 million domestic opening during its first three days in theaters.
With international ticket sales, the film is set to surpass $226 million globally.
“Wicked: For Good” will continue to collect box office receipts during the Thanksgiving holiday.

Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo star in Universal’s “Wicked: For Good.”

Universal’s “Wicked: For Good” defied gravity at the box office, snaring an estimated $150 million from domestic ticket sales.
It marks the second-highest opening weekend for a film released in 2025, just behind Warner Bros.’ “A Minecraft Movie,” which tallied $163 million back in April. It also outpaces the debut of last year’s “Wicked,” which tallied $112.5 million in the U.S. and Canada.

The film’s haul sets the record for the biggest opening weekend of a Broadway adaptation. With additional ticket sales from international markets, “Wicked: For Good” is set to reach a $226 million global haul for its first three days in theaters.
An estimated 10 million tickets were sold for “Wicked: For Good” during opening weekend, topping the 8 million sold during the opening of “Wicked” last year, according to data from EntTelligence.
The box office data company also reported that 30% of domestic screenings were in premium large format theaters, up from 18% for “Wicked.” These tickets are more expensive than general admission and can help bolster blockbuster releases. EntTelligence noted that general tickets for “Wicked: For Good” averaged at around $15.25 each while tickets for premium screens averaged at $18.75 a piece.
“Team Universal did a fantastic job of following perfectly on the success of the original film a year ago and have parlayed that into an even bigger debut for this second installment,” said Paul Dergarabedian, head of marketplace trends at Comscore. “‘Wicked: For Good’ will look forward to incredibly strong playability throughout Thanksgiving week and beyond during the all-important holiday movie-going season.”
Last year, the combination of “Wicked,” Paramount’s “Gladiator II” and Disney’s “Moana 2” helped boost the Thanksgiving holiday box office to its highest haul ever. This year, “Wicked: For Good” is joined by Disney’s “Zootopia 2.”

The first “Zootopia” opened in 2016 to $75 million domestically but went on to gross more than $1 billion worldwide. Pent-up audience demand could push the film’s three-day opening to around $100 million and the five-day Thanksgiving period to north of $125 million.
“The impressive expected over-performance by ‘Wicked: For Good,’ in combination with the other films in the marketplace, could give last year’s record Thanksgiving literally a run for its money,” Dergarabedian said. “This is great news after all the negative stories about the challenging October box office drove the narrative.”
Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal, which owns CNBC. Versant would become the new parent company of CNBC upon Comcast’s planned spinoff of Versant. More

A record 31 million of travelers are set to fly over the Thanksgiving period between Nov. 21 through Dec. 1, airlines said.
Airlines are hoping for a smooth holiday after thousands of flights were disrupted in the federal government shutdown this fall.
Bookings for international trips over the holiday hit a record, up 10% from last year, United said.

A travelers check flight information at LAX as the shutdown passes the one-month mark, leaving essential workers unpaid in Los Angeles, California, on November 5, 2025.
Grace Hie Yoon | Anadolu | Getty Images

U.S. airlines are predicting another record Thanksgiving holiday travel period and are upbeat now that the travel-snarling government shutdown has ended.
Airlines will carry more than 31 million people between Friday, Nov. 21, and Monday, Dec. 1, Airlines for America, a lobbying group representing the largest U.S. carriers, predicted Thursday. The busiest days are expected to be the Sunday after Thanksgiving, with about 3.4 million people flying, followed by the Monday after Thanksgiving, with around 3.1 passengers.

Airline executives have expressed relief after the longest-ever government shutdown ended Nov. 12. Shortages of air traffic controllers, who were required to work without their regular pay, delayed and canceled flights, disrupting travel plans for some 6 million people, A4A said.
The industry is now pushing lawmakers to pass legislation to ensure that air traffic controllers are paid in the case of another shutdown, with executives complaining in recent weeks about air travel becoming a political bargaining chip. The latest bill funds the government only through January, so industry members are hoping to avoid a repeat of the closure just before winter break and spring break seasons begin.

Read more CNBC airline news

Bank of America estimated the big network airlines could see an operating income hit of $150 million to $200 million and smaller carriers would see an impact of $100 million because of the shutdown, but airlines haven’t yet come out with revised estimates.
Some travelers appeared to be waiting until the shutdown ended before booking their travel.
United Airlines said bookings between Nov. 15 and Nov. 16 were up 16% compared with the prior weekend, when air travel disruptions spiked.

The carrier also said bookings for international trips are at a record for the holiday period, up 10% over last year, with Cancun, Mexico, and major European hubs in London and Frankfurt, Germany, as top destinations.
Overall, United forecast it will fly 6.6 million customers between Nov. 20 and Dec. 2., up more than 4% from last year.
The largest U.S. carriers’ international capacity is up about 5% between Nov. 26 and Nov. 30 compared with a similar period last year, according to aviation-data firm Cirium, while domestic capacity is about 2% higher.
American Airlines said it plans to run 80,759 flights from Nov. 20 through Dec. 2., more than any airline.
“The Thanksgiving holiday period is one of the most condensed and most important for our customers — the stakes are high, and the American team is ready to deliver,” American’s Chief Operating Officer David Seymour said in a news release.
Not all airlines have beefed up their schedules, however. Budget carrier Spirit Airlines, in its second bankruptcy in less than a year, has slashed capacity and furloughed hundreds of pilots to cut costs as it seeks to find more solid financial footing.
Spirit’s domestic flying capacity is down close to 40% from a year earlier, Cirium data shows. More

President Donald Trump said California Gov. Gavin Newsom is “laying siege on the minimum wage,” likely referring to the state’s $20 pay floor for fast-food workers.
However, research shows that the state’s fast-food worker turnover is down and widespread closures haven’t occurred.
Still, California franchisees’ sales and profits have taken a hit at a time when other costs are climbing and diners are eating out less often.

U.S. President Donald Trump delivers remarks at the McDonald’s Impact Summit at the Westin Hotel in Washington, D.C., U.S., Nov. 17, 2025.
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters

President Donald Trump on Monday said that California Gov. Gavin Newsom is “laying siege on the minimum wage.”
Trump’s comments at the McDonald’s Impact Summit likely referred to California’s higher hourly pay floor for fast-food workers, which took effect a year and a half ago. However, data so far indicate the policy hasn’t been the danger Trump described.

Research shows that the state’s fast-food worker turnover is down. Widespread closures haven’t occurred, and restaurant chains are still opening locations in California.
To be sure, the increased wages have put more pressure on restaurant chains and operators at a time when other costs are climbing and diners are eating out less frequently. Plus, consumers are paying more for their burgers, chicken tenders and fries as a result of the new pay floor.
But after a protracted fight over whether higher pay for workers would harm restaurants, critics’ worst fears have not come to pass.
Fast-food workers in California at chains with more than 60 national locations started earning $20 an hour in April 2024, 25% more than the state’s broader minimum wage of $16 an hour. The sectoral pay floor is part of larger law passed in California that also establishes a council that will recommend proposed industry standards to state agencies and carries the authority to raise the hourly minimum wage annually.
Fast-food workers’ big break only came after a compromise between the restaurant industry and unions that ended months of fighting between the two parties. The Service Employees International Union championed the legislation, saying it would improve workers’ lives and help with industry turnover. Quick-service restaurants argued that they were being unfairly targeted and the wage hike would burden their businesses.

“I firmly believe that everyone should be entitled to a fair wage. The issue that I and my colleagues in this industry have is that we, as an industry, were targeted,” said Kerri Harper-Howie, who runs WEH Organization and its 25 McDonald’s locations in Los Angeles County with her sister, Nicole Harper-Rawlins.. “If someone works at Macy’s and they’re making minimum wage, or they work at CVS … They also should deserve that increase in wages.”
California hasn’t supported a wider minimum-wage increase. Last November, just months after the fast-food pay floor went into effect, voters in the state struck down a ballot measure that would have raised the statewide minimum wage to $18 an hour. It reportedly was the first time in nearly three decades that voters shot down a statewide minimum wage hike on any state ballot.
For now, other states have yet to follow California’s lead, as the nation monitors the effects of the law and the restaurant industry continues to lobby against it.

A scramble for franchisees

A McDonald’s worker prepares to deliver an order at a McDonald’s restaurant on May 8, 2024 in San Francisco, California.
Justin Sullivan | Getty Images

Broadly, the restaurant industry struggles with razor-thin profit margins. Labor is typically the biggest cost, and operators often aim to keep it roughly 30% of their overall costs. The higher minimum wage has been yet another challenge for operators, on top of commodity inflation and weakness in consumer spending.
“What we can say without a doubt is that it’s really tough to operate any restaurant, any concept, any size, in California right now,” said Sean Kennedy, executive vice president of public affairs for the National Restaurant Association, a major trade group that opposed the wage hike.
For 17 months after the higher minimum wage went into effect, Harper-Howie’s WEH Organization saw its same-store sales decline. The trend finally reversed in October, as McDonald’s rounded the one-year anniversary of an E. coli outbreak that sent company-wide sales plunging by double-digits overnight. The burger chain more broadly has seen its U.S. performance struggle, although it reported same-store sales growth in the third quarter.
“For a long period of time, we were just bleeding money,” said Harper-Howie, who formed the California Alliance of Family Owned Businesses with fellow McDonald’s franchisees to push back against the California legislation.
Harper-Howie estimates that her restaurants passed along price increases of less than 10% to customers. Raising prices further would be difficult amid a pullback in dining across the restaurant industry, particularly from low-income consumers. Plus, she said other minimum-wage workers who frequent McDonald’s didn’t receive the same pay hike, which made the food “unaffordable for many.”
Harshraj Ghai, who operates more than 200 Burger King, Taco Bell and Popeyes locations across California and Oregon, has similarly raised menu prices by roughly 10% to 12% at California locations. That wasn’t enough to offset the wage increases, Ghai said.
To further mitigate the higher costs, Ghai has worked to cut labor hours by testing artificial intelligence to take drive-thru orders, using pre-cooked bacon for breakfast and adding automatic batter mixers.
“The cost and maintenance of of these technologies starts to become a little bit better than it would to pay somebody to actually do it,” he said.
The wage hike was just one more rapidly increasing cost for franchisees to wrangle. For example, Harper-Howie said WEH’s insurance costs have soared, on top of rising prices for beef and other key ingredients.
The Los Angeles wildfires put more pressure on Harper-Howie’s business. One of her locations was temporarily closed, but the bigger blow came from the shrinking traffic as fires raged across the county, displacing many residents and scaring off tourists.
Trump’s hardline immigration stance has been another issue.
“Our employees are predominantly Latino, and they’re terrified,” Harper-Howie said. “That’s all of our hourly workers, our general managers, our shift managers, our department managers, and supervisors — and it’s our customers.”
Harper-Howie said that she hasn’t had to close any restaurants yet, crediting WEH’s decades in the McDonald’s system after her parents joined the franchise in the 1980’s.
But that isn’t the case for Ghai, who has had to shutter some unprofitable locations permanently. He said that he’s shuttered roughly 10 California locations over the last year and half, and he anticipates shuttering another 12 over the next year or two. While closures are a typical part of a large-scale restaurant business, those closures are much steeper than normal for Ghai, he said.
For comparison, Ghai operates only Taco Bell restaurants in Oregon, but those locations are “significantly more profitable” than those in California, he said. He hasn’t had to close any of his Oregon Taco Bells, but he has closed at least three in California. Taco Bell broadly has outperformed the broader fast-food industry over the last year, helped by its value perception and strong brand equity.
Meanwhile, Kennedy said some franchisors are choosing to refranchise their California restaurants, collecting franchising fees in place of the headaches of operating the locations themselves.
Despite higher labor costs, California is still a desirable market for fast-food chains. The state added nearly 2,300 fast-food restaurants from the first quarter of 2024 to the first quarter of 2025, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That increase represents a 5% jump, faster than the rest of the country’s growth of 2% and outpacing California’s increase of 2% in the year-ago period, based on analysis by the California Fast Food Workers Union.

A lifeline for workers

An employee hands items to a customer at the drive-thru of a Jack in the Box restaurant in Los Angeles, California, US, on Monday, April 1, 2024.
Eric Thayer | Bloomberg | Getty Images

While the mandated pay hike brings another challenge for restaurant operators, workers see it as a win, even if it means fewer scheduled hours.
For Zane Marte, 28, the pay bump meant that he could offer more support to his family and buy some of his own groceries, rather than leaning on his parents.
Marte worked for Jack in the Box in the San Jose area for seven years. When he started, he earned $12 an hour. Over time, his pay crept up, lifted by raises and eventually a promotion to a management position. Still, until the $20 fast-food wage went into effect, his hourly pay was still several dollars below the new pay floor.
His experience aligns with research from the University of California Berkeley’s Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics. Researchers Michael Reich and Denis Sosinskiy found that the average pre-policy wage for fast-food workers in California was $17.13 an hour, suggesting that the average hourly pay hike after the $20 minimum took effect was about 17%.
A separate report from the University of Kentucky published in April found that hiring for fast-food jobs fell after the new pay floor was implemented. However, turnover shrank as the higher wages encouraged workers to stick around. That decline in turnover offset a slowdown in hiring for fast-food workers in California, according to the report.
Historically, turnover has been a major problem for the fast-food industry. Hiring and training new workers is expensive and time consuming for operators.
For his part, Marte left Jack in the Box months after receiving the raise after he said he grew “fed up” with his manager. He has since left California and found employment using his college degree.
Before the higher minimum wage went into effect, one concern from operators and trade groups was that other restaurants not included in the policy would have to raise their own wages to stay competitive — which critics said could be particularly hard for small businesses. But that fear largely doesn’t seem to have been realized.
The Berkeley study did not find any evidence of a spillover into the wages of workers at full-service restaurants chains such as Denny’s, Applebee’s, Buffalo Wild Wings, Red Robin and Outback Steakhouse.
And more broadly, the researchers from the University of Kentucky did not find evidence that other non-food, low-wage employers raised their pay. The slowdown in fast-food hiring meant that other employers didn’t have to worry much about their workers leaving for those jobs.
Research from the Shift Project, a partnership between Harvard and the University of California San Francisco, found that the wage hike did not result in employers cutting scheduled hours or lead to understaffing in the immediate aftermath of the policy.
Anecdotally, however, some fast-food restaurants have cut back their hours.
For example, Julia Gonzalez, 21, lives in Los Angeles and works at Pizza Hut and Yoshinoya, a Japanese fast-food chain with roughly 100 locations in California. She told CNBC that she’s been scheduled for fewer hours, but the increased wages still mean that she’s able to save more money. (Gonzalez is affiliated with the California Fast Food Workers Union, which was a proponent of the industry’s higher minimum wage.)
Harper-Howie also told CNBC that her restaurants cut the number of overall labor hours because of slumping sales, as higher menu prices scared away diners.
Meanwhile, the number of fast-food job losses caused by the policy is still hotly debated.
Analysis of BLS data by the Employment Policies Institute, which opposes minimum wage hikes, found that roughly 16,000 fast-food jobs in California have been eliminated since Newsom signed the law in September 2024. However, Reich and Sosinskiy reported no related job losses using employment data that was adjusted to remove seasonal fluctuations, citing California’s more temperate climate than the rest of the country.
For his part, Newsom, widely believed to be a frontrunner for the 2028 presidential election, still includes it in lists of his policy wins as California governor.
“After raising the minimum wage for workers, California now has 750,500 fast food jobs — the MOST in state history! California’s fast food industry continues to boom every single month with workers finally receiving the wages they deserve,” he wrote in a post on X in August last year. More