Report: Public Subsidies Common With Fast-Food Workers
New research suggests highly profitable fast food chains are costing taxpayers billions of dollars by their policies of compensating employees with low wages and no benefits, forcing many to access public assistance programs.
A study conducted by University of California-Berkeley researchers found that 52 percent of “front-line” fast-food workers rely on at least one public assistance program to support themselves or their families. Using that data, the National Employment Law Project (NELP) estimated that the business model for fast-food restaurants costs taxpayers an average of $7 billion a year nationwide.
In August, about 200 Boston-area fast-food workers participated in a national action, walking off the job to protest low wages. Strike organizers said the median salary nationwide for the 4.1 million fast-food workers was under $9 an hour.
The NELP report estimated that employees of the 10 largest fast-food companies are accessing $3.8 billion in public benefits a year, while those same companies earned $7.44 billion in profits in fiscal 2012, and paid out $52.7 million to top executives.
Senate leaders this year have been exploring plans to raise the state’s $8-an-hour minimum wage, but no proposal has surfaced to date. The Joint Committee on Labor and Workforce Development is considering several proposals that could raise the minimum wage to as high as $11 an hour, while activists are gathering signatures to put a question on the 2014 statewide ballot raising the minimum wage to $10.50.
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