Fast-Food Workers Protest Poverty McWages

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rogueanthro/8569842435/">Kara Newhouse</a>/Flickr

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


For McDonald’s shareholders, the past five years can be aptly summed up by the slogan “I’m lovin’ it.” According to Yahoo Finance, shares of the global fast-food giant are up 80 percent since April 2008—more than four times the gain of the S&P 500 over the same period. The company is robustly profitable—its profit margin hovers near 20 percent, and it’s got $2.3 billion in cash on the books.

Other fast-food giants are doing well by their shareholders, too. Burger King shares are up 25 percent over the past year, while YUM! Brands—the holding company for Taco Bell, KFC, and Pizza Hut—are up 10 percent. (Over the same period, the S&P 500 is up just 5 percent.)

For these companies’ employees, it’s been a much rougher road. The steep recession and glacial recovery have kept unemployment at high levels, meaning fewer opportunities to switch jobs and little leverage in wage negotiations. Even in ultra-expensive New York City—which has by far the nation’s highest cost of living—many McDonalds, Burger King, and Yum! workers draw the federal minimum wage, $7.25. The federal minimum wage translates to about $15,000 per year. This, in a city where the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment tops $3,000.

That’s why it’s so heartening that in New York City, workers from big-name  fast-food chains are walking off the job and taking to the streets to demand better wages. Here’s the New York Times:

Thursday’s strike, sponsored by a labor-community coalition that calls itself Fast Food Forward, seeks to press the city’s fast-food restaurants to pay their employees $15 an hour. Many workers say they can barely get by on the $7.25, $8 or $9 an hour that many receive; $9 an hour translates to around $18,000 a year for a full-time worker. The current minimum wage in New York State is $7.25, though lawmakers agreed last month to raise it to $9 by 2016.        

For an excellent discussion of the situation, including interviews with workers having to support families on fast-food wages—check out this segment from Chris Hayes’ new MSNBC show:

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate