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What Happens To The Dollar Menu If Fast Food Workers Make A Living Wage?
By
Christopher Robbins
Published Dec 1, 2013
Modified Dec 1, 2013
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By
Christopher Robbins
Published Dec 1, 2013
Modified Dec 1, 2013
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Eduardo Shoy is 58 years old, works 70 hours a week, and sleeps no more than four hours a night. Also, "his car is stained with an abiding stench of grease." That's because he works two jobs, one as a forklift operator and another as a delivery man for KFC and Pizza Hut. Like the other 55,000 fast food workers in New York, Shoy has trouble paying his bills and supporting his family because the companies that employ them refuse to pay a living wage. Then again, who wants the price of a hamburger to increase by a quarter?
Shoy's life in Queens is profiled in this piercing Times report that strips away the abstraction of "unskilled workers" and paints a bleak picture of what it's like to rely on a job that pays $7.25/hour.
As is custom these days, a mouthpiece for the fast food industry helpfully supplies the cognitive dissonance:
Melissa Autilio Fleischut, the chief executive of the New York State Restaurant Association, which supports the industry, including fast-food establishments, said that fast food was “an opportunity industry” where young workers could learn skills and advance. If the minimum wage were indeed raised to $15, Ms. Fleischut, said the result would be more automation, fewer workers hired and increased costs at the counter. “McDonald’s dollar meal would be $1.25,” she said.
Or it might cost slightly more. Or maybe it will remain $1—there's competition, after all.
“People ask me how I do it,” Shoy says in the piece. “But you do what you have to do. Otherwise I’d be living under the Williamsburg Bridge.”
Tagged
fast food workers
fundamental fairness
kfc
living wage
minimum wage
pizza hut
unskilled labor
Christopher Robbins
Christopher Robbins is a New York City reporter covering transportation, affordable housing, local politics, and criminal justice. His work has also appeared in New York Magazine, The Village Voice and The New York Times. Chris is a graduate of Patrick Henry High School in Roanoke, Virginia, and enjoys biking to Fort Tilden in the summertime.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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