Fast Food Protest Tennesse.JPG

Protestors hold signs during a demonstration Thursday Dec. 5, 2013 on a sidewalk near the McDonald's on Brainerd Road in Chattanooga, Tenn. Demonstrators were taking part in a larger national campaign protesting low wages.

(AP Photo/Chattanooga Times Free Press, Doug Strickland)

The day after President Obama described inequality as the "defining challenge of our times," fast-food workers walked off the job in 100 cities across the country. Unless you've been living under a rock (or intentionally detoxing from news and social media) you've heard about the national fast food workers' movement demanding to be paid $15 an hour and the right to unionize.



The federal minimum wage is currently $7.25 an hour, which amounts to roughly $15,000 a year, right about the federal poverty level for a family of two (think single-mother, one child). Considering that in the city if Syracuse, the Living Wage for 2013 was calculated to be $14.68 if you're not receiving health benefits (it's $12.43 with benefits), the fast-food workers' demand is pretty reasonable. If you're working full time and the company you're working for is profitable, you should probably make enough to live, right?



"Treat others as you'd like to be treated" is the mantra I learned in Catholic school. The outrage I've witnessed about the fast-food workers' demands displays a lack of empathy for poor and working class people in our country, often referred to as "those people," implying that low-wage workers at national chains are somehow "less than." Obviously there's a misunderstanding of who is actually performing low-wage work. At some point, the teenager making extra pocket cash or the college dropout became the stereotypical minimum wage fast-food worker who eventually, with better education or a stronger work ethic, could move past burger-flipping into better paid jobs.



Today, three-quarters of minimum-wage workers are aged 20 or older. More than 25 percent are parents, and a majority of them are the primary or only providers for their household. Minimum-wage workers are actually better-educated today, but paid less than they were 30 years ago. The share of workers at or below the federal minimum wage who have had some college education increased from 19.5 to 33.3 percent between 1979 and 2011. Increasingly, it seems that more education results in more student debt, but not necessarily more opportunities.

By keeping wages low and hoarding profits for their CEOs and stockholders, companies such as McDonalds and Walmart are freeloading off taxpayers because many of their workers depend on publicly funded anti-poverty programs to make ends meet.

McDonalds actually has something called the "McResource" line where employees can get financial advice -- like how to sign up for food stamps and heating assistance -- to help them survive on the low wages they're paid. According to a recent report from the University of California-Berkeley Labor Center, public assistance to workers at the 10 largest fast food companies costs about $3.8 billion annually. This massive tax payer funded subsidy could be eliminated (or at least significantly reduced) by raising the minimum wage to a liveable wage.

While I sympathize with the small businesses worried about their ability to pay their workers a higher minimum wage, the majority of low-wage workers are employed by large corporations, not small businesses. The three largest employers of minimum wage workers are WalMart, Yum! Brands (which owns Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, and KFC), and McDonald's. These companies are raking in bigger profits than before the Great Recession and yet are paying their workers poverty wages. The CEO of YUM! Brands made $20.5 million last year. Estimates show that the CEO of Walmart makes more in one hour than the average Walmart worker makes in a year. Not surprisingly, the Walmart PAC and the Walton family are also generous donors to politicians who oppose a minimum wage increase.

Increasing the minimum wage would not only benefit workers individually, but would also provide a much needed stimulus to the economy. Paying $15 per hour to millions of workers will increase the amount families can spend on goods and services. Money spent by workers, recycled back into the economy has a far greater impact on economic growth rate than handouts to the top 1 percent who sit on much of that money rather than investing it in jobs. Henry Ford understood this concept back in the day - he paid his workers well enough so that they could afford to buy his cars.

If you're making a decent wage, whether its hourly or a salary that allows you to support yourself and your family, why begrudge another person the opportunity to earn a livable wage? We can't let today's precarious economic reality - where we're loaded down with all sorts of debt and living a few paychecks away from a financial cliff - make us turn a cold shoulder to workers in our community.



There are a number of minimum wage bills on the table. Not as high as the demands put forward by fast-food workers, HR 1346 introduced by Rep. Alan Grayson would pull the minimum wage up to $10.50, the equivalent of where it stood in 1968 (if the $1.60 had been indexed for inflation). "Catching Up With 1968" is the motto behind the bill, which if it went into effect, would give a raise to more than 30 million workers--or about a quarter of the U.S. workforce.

The New York state bill that raises the minimum wage incrementally to $9 by 2016 seems pathetic in comparison, more so because it does not apply to tipped workers. While some minimum wage increase, whether it's to $10.60 or $15, is better than no wage increase, workers at any profitable company need to be paid a living wage. And if a business depends on its existence by paying less than a living wage? It needs a better business plan, one that includes adequate wages for its workers.

Ursula Rozum wries a monthly guest columnist for The Post-Standard and syracuse.com.