Hamburgers vs. Minimum Wage

It is said that fast-food chains employ only students trying to make some extra money during the summer break. And allegedly they cannot be paid more.

Let’s start with the cliché repeated not only by libertarians from school debate clubs, which is where I heard it first, but also a large group of economists that often find themselves on the pages of The Wall Street Journal. “Fast-food chains cannot afford better wages for their employees, so a potential increase in the minimum hourly wage would not improve the fate of the lowest paid. On the contrary, it would force owners to lay off workers, which in turn would burden the federal budget with another wave of people requiring social help. If you agree to an increase in minimum wage, you can kiss your favorite fast food restaurant goodbye.”*

Eating is big business in the U.S. One out of every 10 Americans makes their living in the restaurant industry. Taxes paid by bars and restaurants occupy a firm position in state and federal budgets. Despite the crisis, the sector has boasted steady growth in revenue, and 2013 is likely to be a record-breaking year in this respect. There is a belief that low wages guarantee a high level of employment as well as constitute a solution that allows employers to hire people instead of bringing in machines to replace them. All in all, it boils down to this: Either we pay more [for the food] or [restaurants will] continue serving the cheapest meals and do nothing to decrease unemployment. It’s your pick.

Americans have been hearing about this alternative a lot lately — but it’s false.

Low wages in the food services industry are dictated not solely by the economy, but also by cultural perceptions and prejudices about “flipping burgers,” as they call it in the U.S., that have accrued over the last few decades. And I have to stress that there is a virtual abyss between expectations and actual work conditions, as well as the costs incurred by fast-food chain employees for the comfort and convenience of their customers.

In the popular imagination, it looks somewhat like this: We all worked at a fast-food restaurant at some stage of our lives and there’s no harm in a few extra bucks — that is why they create such jobs. It is a business dominated by young people — students and college girls serving fries who are trying to make extra money over the summer break. Or it’s like this: Fast-food restaurants are the essence of Americana and part of tradition, a place where you can have a burger or a local specialty. [The fast food restaurant was] a small, family business that served inexpensive food designed to cater to Americans’ tastes during the times of the Great Depression, as it still does today — in contrast to the urban sushi and hipster coffee houses where there are no fries on the menu and you’ll pay as much as $10 for a simple sandwich they claim is “European.”

How did those beliefs become so popular? On one hand, a whopping 80 percent of the respondents agree that wages in the restaurant sector should be higher; on the other hand, the mythologized image of fast food is deeply rooted in society — because it upholds the politics of giant restaurant chains. Maintaining the importance of fast food meals in American culture is crucial for their survival. [Chain-restaurant owners] are fully aware of this, which is why they spend billions of dollars on advertising every year. In their campaigns, they depict dynamic groups of young people serving fries to their peers in a friendly atmosphere. Other chains lean more toward tradition, putting words such as “country” or “family” in the company name and dressing waitresses in home aprons to make them look as if they literally just jumped out of their own kitchen.

In truth, working in a fast food restaurant has nothing in common with those blissful pictures. To start with, young people are not a prevalent force in the market: Half the workforce is over 28 years old. Many are college graduates, [a fact] that does not necessarily fit the image of a teenager earning beer money. The statistics are even worse for female workers: The average age is 32 years old. Most employees do not perceive this work as a way of making extra money for the summer break — they have been working in fast-food chains for a few years, and one-fourth of employees have at least one dependent child.

The average hourly wage across the industry is just over $8. Even if we take into account bars that pay a little better than the chains, it is still merely a dollar more than the minimum wage, and between one and three dollars short of making an independent living at subsistence level. And I do not mean in New York, but in places we have never heard of, like Kuttawa, Ky. Certainly, the costs of living for a single parent with a child in a metropolitan area are significantly higher. It is no accident that restaurant workers constitute one of the biggest groups applying for food stamps. What is more, we still have to remember that among waiters and waitresses, the hourly minimum wage is fixed at a shocking $2.30, on the grounds that they receive tips.

Last but not least, unlike what some restaurants try to show, working in a fast-food chain bears no resemblance to traditional home cooking — unless they consider nuking a cheesecake produced in a factory located 500 miles away an American tradition. We also cannot really define this business as local and patriotic since employees of McDonald’s in Australia, for example, earn nearly twice as much as their American counterparts. In Canada, where there is no minimum wage set by law, the wages are one to two dollars higher on average, depending on the province.

The situation of fast-food workers is representative (and sometimes even slightly better of a representation) of the worst-paid jobs. However, as long as giant restaurant chains are successful in maintaining their image as a temporary workplace for students and seasonal workers, Americans will remain reluctant about an increase in minimum wage. Moreover, discussions about such a reform will strengthen interclass antagonisms: The lowest paid workers from the defense or automobile industries will not walk arm-in-arm with fast-food workers. The media has successfully convinced them that [fast-food workers] are only a bunch of students having fun, or losers who ended up at the checkout of a chain store instead of landing the job they really wanted.

To conclude, there will be no serious discussion about minimum wage in the U.S. without a debunking of the myths surrounding fast food. There will only be “rational,” “common sense” economy-centered arguments already endlessly repeated within the neoliberal dogma claiming that an increase in minimum wage will equal people getting fired and exacerbate the fate of the lowest paid.

It is high time someone finally brought attention to single parents who have to “flip burgers” to afford their children’s schooling and pay off mortgages. It had better happen really “fast.”

*Editor’s note: The original quotation, accurately translated, could not be verified.