https://apnews.com/article/california-minimum-wage-government-and-politics-business-d05084d8a3ab978b02c8c8aef2d2b7ba
I'm not sure I understand why you would target exploitative practices in the fast food rather than exploitative practices full stop.
Based on what I've seen, my guess is that wage theft is *more* prevalent in businesses with fewer than 100 locations than in companies with more. Small businesses often fly under the radar.
Penalties for wage theft are very low (employer has to pay back withheld wages), whereas the penalties for an employee who steals an apple from the employer can be draconian. It seems like wage theft should be prosecuted much more aggressively everywhere.
Having a single industry target -albeit a large target- struck me as odd, too. Debbie says it is just a start.
New York went this way. Their minimum wage rules are complex. I think they got rid of the fast food wage and folded it into the hospitality wage. But they have wages for tipped/untipped (fine, that's normal), larger/smaller than 10 employees, NYC/Long Island, Westchester/rest of the state, then a few industry breakdowns - hospitality, building services, garment, farm, general. Some of these are the same, but clearly it is on the books to make them different.
In that case, I assume it is mostly a function of which unions are strong and which industry lobbyists/trade groups are weak. Like the tax code