Fast-food workers make $20 an hour. California's other low-wage earners ask: What about us?

Key Facts

A few hundred feet away, at a Jack in the Box drive-through, workers are making about $4 more an hour thanks to California’s mandatory $20 minimum wage for fast-food employees that kicked in last month.
The fast-food and healthcare wage requirements join a separate patchwork of mandates ordered by some California cities that require employers to pay more than the state’s $16 hourly minimum wage.
The minimum wage pencils out to about $33,000 a year, and the average cost of living in California is about $53,082 annually, according to recent federal data.
While some research shows that higher wages are good for the economy and won’t harm even small businesses, some fast-food restaurants have moved to lay off workers and hike prices in the wake of wage mandates.