I have a Mikrotik router, 2x VLAN-enabled switches, and 3x VLAN-enabled APs. My Internet access broke every day for a month while I figured out what I was doing.
From skimming TFA, it's not that the numbers are fake per se, it's that they're wildly misinterpreted.
Job cuts coincided with minimum wage laws, however, they also coincided with seasonal reduction in workforce. So it's entirely expected that that would happen.
Adjusting for seasonal expectations --- which you absolutely must do for a proper comparison --- gives you the opposite conclusion, and emphatically does not point to the minimum wage having a negative causal link to fast-food employment numbers.