Half of fast food workers rely on public assistance just to get by.
A new report based on collaborative research from the University of California Berkeley Labor Center and the University of Illinois (PDF here) helps us paint a clearer picture about the fast food industry’s impact on the widening income gap in the United States.
The report states that 52% of families of fast food workers receive assistance from public programs such as food stamps and medicaid. This number, while significant, points to an even larger problem: it’s only double the percentage of families elsewhere in the American workforce who rely on public assistance. While the debate (somehow) rages on as to whether fast food workers should be paid more than $9 after eight years of work, this study shows that “we the people” are far more invested in this issue than we realize.
Taxpayers are footing 1.2 billion just for families of McDonald’s employees. Inadequate pay costs us all, regardless of where you stand on the political issues. And remember this: There’s no such thing as a 99-cent burger. Someone somewhere in the supply chain will pay the price. Always.
In a statement to CNN, The National Employment Law Project stated the following:
“The leading companies in the industry [McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s, Subway…] earn billions in profits each year, award chief executives generous compensation packages, and regularly distribute substantial amounts of money in the form of dividends and share buybacks. At the same time…these highly profitable companies’ low-wage, no-benefits business model imposes on taxpayers.”
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Fellow Americans, we’re suffering from a gross case of normalcy bias. We’re so accustomed to seeing employees struggle while the boss purchases a mansion and rides around in a $200,000 sports car that it only annoys us, if that. In truth, it should outrage us into action — not by wanting to be the boss and do the same thing but to change the system in whatever way we can.
There are destructive myths out there such as how the rich are more generous than the poor, and how fast food workers are mostly college students so raising the minimum wage won’t help families. But here’s what isn’t a myth:
What changes the world? An “infinitely large number of infinitesimally small actions.”
–Photo: Jakalito/Flickr
I worked for Boeing aerospace in San Antonio and I supported the warfighter in IraqI am a 55 year old man with six children and a wife got hurt on the job and was collecting workmans compensation works mins cop stopped payment for my living now I do not have any resources to feed my family or to pay my bills for my rent and the vehicle I purchased i have filed for food stamps but no telling how long that will take I’m in great need an wishing somebody to help me threw this hard time and with Christmas… Read more »
The wages these companies are offering “minimum wage” are completely within the law. There is no law saying a company has to pay more than that. There is no law that says every job offered to someone has to be a full time job with benefits and enough pay to support themselves and their family. Fast food jobs have a low education and skill level requirement. Thus low pay. Unlike a doctor which has a high education and skill level requirement thus it has higher pay. The “bills” that this title speaks of are not the company’s bills. They are… Read more »
Dear Krishnabrodhi, You’re totally right – this is all completely within the law. That’s actually a major part of the problem. And completely “within the law” does not mean these actions contain a shred of ethics. Low pay is fine, but there’s a problem when even a full-time job with low pay (I worked at McDonalds – it’s hard work) still puts people below the poverty line. And there’s a problem with the often conservative-led argument that says: “Well, people should just get an education then. There.” This isn’t a possibility for many people, and “getting an education” often doesn’t… Read more »
“cutting every legal corner in order to pay their workers as little as possible” Please site a fast food company that is illegally cutting corners an not paying their workers the minimum wage? It is not a company’s responsibility to pay someone more than minimum wage for a fast food job that you can get without even having a high school diploma. The sense of entitlement behind this has not been transformed into an existing law that requires companies to pay more than minimum wage. It just hasn’t. And as far as a “living wage” goes. Living wage for one… Read more »
corrections… “That’s the American Dream that people move to this (country) for. For (their) chance at being Oprah rich.”
I said “cutting every legal corner” for a reason. It’s legal.
And yes, it’s their “right.” But that doesn’t make it Right.
By viewing the complexity of humanity *only* through rule of law we create and then enable some of the world’s largest problems to become worse.
~Cameron
I would agree that point of view is an issue with this. There is a conflict between seeing the country as a colony of ants where each individual performs its tasks for the benefit of the colony (organism) as a whole, ie socialist leaning thought and philosophy… and a grasshopper where the individual gets to live his own life in whatever mean he chooses, is responsible for himself only and does not have to be of service to anyone… ie free market capitalism. America is struggling to find a way for those two ways of thinking to coexist gracefully. Success… Read more »
Cameron, Thanks for this article. We need to recognize that Big Food, like many other Big Businesses, are in the business of making money. If it means addicting us to junk food and paying their employees minimally, that’s just good business. It gets them repeat business (we die slowly from the huge quantities of Fat, Sugar, and Salt, that are added) and allows them to keep costs to a minimum. Government colludes with them (what’s good for Big Business is Good For America) to pass the costs on to the citizens. This will continue until we unite and just say… Read more »