I have a confession to make: I love McDonald’s French fries. When I was in college, during particularly stressful finals or mid-terms weeks, I would go to the campus McDonald’s and order myself a small fries. But nowadays, when I think back to my trips to those glowing golden arches, I can’t help but think about minimum wage and low-wage workers; and no matter how delicious those French fries tasted, I can’t help but leave with a bit of a sour taste in my mouth and feel as though those arches have lost their luster.
I have a confession to make: I love McDonald’s French fries. When I was in college, during particularly stressful finals or mid-terms weeks, I would go to the campus McDonald’s and order myself a small fries. I’d time my visit around when I knew the fries were likely to be fresh and excitedly hop on my toes waiting for that crispy, salty goodness.
Nowadays, when I think back to my trips to those glowing golden arches, I can’t help but think about minimum wage and low-wage workers; and no matter how delicious those French fries tasted, I can’t help but leave with a bit of a sour taste in my mouth and feel as though those arches have lost their luster.
NWLC’s analyses show that two-thirds of minimum-wage and tipped-wage workers are women, 60% of women’s job gains in the recovery are in the ten largest low-wage jobs. NWLC analysis of the Census Bureau’s most recent numbers show that the overall poverty rate hasn’t budged much, with 18.4 percent of families with children in poverty, and 14.5 percent of women compared with 11.0 percent of men living in poverty. More than one in seven women – 17.8 million – live in poverty.
And I would be remiss not to mention that recently McDonald’s came out with a budget builder that automatically had a place to record income from your second job – even McDonald’s knows that you can’t make enough to survive on the average pay for a McDonald’s worker alone. And recently, workers have been vocally and outwardly demanding fair wages. Of course, fast food isn’t the only industry that pays its workers minimum wage – this is a problem across the board.
When faced with numbers like these, it’s easy to feel disheartened. But what if, instead of getting discouraged, we raised the minimum wage and tipped minimum wage? The federal minimum wage has been stuck for more than four years at $7.25 an hour, which leaves a working mom with two kids thousands of dollars below the poverty line. It’s also more than $3.00 below where the minimum wage would be if it had kept up with inflation over the past four decades.