More than 625 California fast food restaurant owners are warning the state’s new Fast Food Council that hiking their industry’s minimum wage above the $20 hourly rate imposed last year would “cripple thousands of small business owners” already struggling to stay afloat.

“We simply cannot survive another wage increase,” the restaurant owners wrote in a late-December letter to the council and its chair, Nicholas Hardeman.

One of the fundamental principles of economics is that if the price of something goes up, people will buy less of it. Californians are now learning the hard way that this principle applies to labor just as much as it does to any other good or service.

Last September, Gavin Newsom hailed the passage of a law that increased the already high $16-per-hour minimum wage in California to $20 per hour for fast-food workers at chains with more than 60 locations nationwide (the minimum wage for health-care workers is also being increased).

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass announced Monday the city faces a $800 million deficit, plans on laying off 1,647 staff, is seeking a state bailout and has “identified new revenue.”

Bass blamed the Trump administration and the economy for falling revenue.

“Cities like ours are going through challenging economic times across the nation,” said Bass. “Turmoil and uncertainty from Washington and a slowing economy are causing lower revenue projections.”

California Gov. Gavin Newsom is suing the Trump administration over international tariffs. He says that the tariffs will cause major damage to the state’s economy.

The tariffs go from a 10% duty on most goods all the way up to 145% on many Chinese goods.

It’s unknown at this time what impact the lawsuit might have on the tariffs, both in California and throughout the U.S.

California voters are less keen on fighting Trump than their state’s political elite.

In a dual survey of California voters and political professionals who are driving the state’s agenda, the electorate is strikingly more likely to want a détente with the White House. Voters are also more divided on issues like immigration and climate change, where Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democratic state lawmakers have asserted progressive ambitions that rebuff President Donald Trump’s agenda.

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Political influencers in California are greeting Kamala Harris’ potential bid for governor with a shrug, while registered voters in the state react more passionately — in good and bad ways — to her possible candidacy, according to a in a first-of-its-kind poll from POLITICO and UC Berkeley’s Citrin Center.

Insiders reported feeling “indifferent” more than any other emotion to a hypothetical Harris run, while registered voters were more likely to characterize their reaction as “joyful,” “outraged” or “hopeless.”

Tens of thousands of music fans will descend on the California desert this weekend for the first of two iterations of the Coachella Music and Arts festival outside of Palm Springs, Calif.

If you’re financing your festival tickets, honestly, who cares? You gotta flex that carefully staged Instagram shot in front of the Ferris wheel somehow, right? 

Nothing screams financial stability like throwing a $49 down payment on a $600 ticket, then praying your direct deposit hits before your third installment bounces.

You wouldn’t want your Instagram followers knowing the ugly truth right? That your credit score barely qualifies you to rent a scooter, let alone pretend you’re a VIP at Coachella.

I think we’ve done it folks.

This. 

Overpriced, inedible concessions at Coachella have outraged critics who are calling out the music festival for being a “money trap” as hundreds of thousands descended on the Southern California desert.

One influencer claimed she spent over $100 for her meal consisting of tacos and lemonade on the first night of Coachella on Friday, which pop megastar Lady Gaga headlined on the festival’s main stage.

Ruth Viveros, who has chronicled her experience in Coachella Valley since Friday, shared a glimpse into the food at the famous music festival.