This feels like bad data to me. Don’t get me wrong, I support it. It’s just that if you’re going to determine if the raise in wages “took” jobs, it’s not whether there was a gain at all but rather how California fares compared to other states, right?
That is, if restaurants went on a massive hiring frenzy country-wide due to an increase in fast food consumption everywhere, but other states had a much larger increase, it would suggest though not prove that the increase in wages caused fast food restaurants to hire less actively in California.
I suspect that’s not the case, but I just don’t like passing off incomplete data as proof of something.
Usually I say “don’t mistake incompetence for malice” because so often when people fuck up, they aren’t doing it to be mean but just because they’re stupid.
In this case, though, you’re mistaking malice for incompetence. Everything Reagan fucked up was 100% intentional. I mean, punishing black people and poor people was basically a campaign promise.