The massive inflation unleashed during the Biden administration had a devastating impact on working families across the nation as food prices soared and earners’ real income declined.

Now, a state question to hike Oklahoma’s minimum wage based on prices in the nation’s largest urban centers threatens to drive up fast-food prices even further, putting even a basic burger out of reach for families on a limited income, according to one longtime Oklahoma businessman.

“I’m for everybody making more money, but the basics of a business (are) if everything goes up—if costs of goods goes up, if cost of labor goes up—then our prices have to go up,” Frank Arnold, who has operated Arnold’s Hamburgers for 38 years in Tulsa, said in a recent video produced by the State Chamber of Oklahoma.

State Question 832 would mandate annual increases in Oklahoma’s minimum wage based on increases in the cost-of-living in the nation’s urban centers, as measured by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers.

Because Oklahoma is one of the nation’s lowest-cost states, the measure would effectively mandate rapid wage increases far above market rates in Oklahoma, based on the cost of living in places like San Francisco and New York City.

As a result, while SQ 832 would initially mandate that entry-level jobs pay $15 an hour by 2029, the wage mandate would rapidly escalate ever higher. An analysis by the State Chamber of Oklahoma and Oklahoma Farm Bureau found SQ 832 could inflate Oklahoma’s minimum wage to $35.61 per hour within 15 years.

Working families wanting to eat fast food would bear the brunt of much of the increased cost.

In 2020, a basic burger at Arnold’s Hamburgers cost $3.49. By 2024, after the years of Biden-era inflation, the price for the same hamburger had risen to $5.19.

Arnold said the increased costs imposed by SQ 832 will boost prices even further, potentially making the burger that cost $3.49 in 2020 cost $7 to $8 soon, at least double the 2020 cost.

The experience of other states shows artificially high wage laws translate into higher prices for food, particularly fast food.

SQ 832 is similar to a law enacted in California that dramatically increased the minimum wage for fast-food employees to $20 an hour in April 2024.

In November 2024, the Employment Policies Institute found that the California wage law had reduced fast-food job opportunities and hit customers’ pocketbooks. Menu prices surged as much as 10.1 percent from the law’s 2023 passage to April 2024.

A February 2025 paper from the Berkeley Research Group found that menu prices at California’s fast-food restaurants increased by 14.5 percent between September 2023 (the month the wage legislation was signed into law) and October 2024, which was nearly double the national average during that time.

At an October 2025 study conducted by members of the Oklahoma House of Representatives, James Leewright, president and CEO of the Oklahoma Restaurant Association, warned that, adjusted for cost-of-living differences, a $20-an-hour wage in California was comparable to a $14-per-hour wage in Oklahoma, meaning the impact of SQ 832 could be even more severe than California’s law.

Arnold warned that SQ 832 makes it difficult for business owners to both make a profit and provide affordable food to families.

“I’d like to be able to charge the least amount I have to,” Arnold said, “because I want to put out a quality product at a reasonable price that a family can come in here and not break the bank.”