Taco Bell just announced that it will test a $100,000 salary in “select locations” of its restaurants for general managers in company-owned stores, as reported by The New York Times. In some sections of social media, the backlash to this news was swift: Why do they deserve that if I don’t? What about other poorly paid workers, like teachers and EMTs? Or volunteer firefighters? Before we get into why fast-food workers really do deserve actually livable wages, let’s go over the details on Taco Bell and how it compares to other fast-food giants.
For Taco Bell, this pay increase will take place sometime in 2020 at around 450 Taco Bell locations, all of which are owned by corporate. These salary increases won’t take place at the locations owned as individual franchises. "We are still in the planning phase and do not have locations or participants confirmed at this time," a spokesperson emailed to CBS MoneyWatch.
Right now, general managers earn between $50,000 and $80,000, according to a Taco Bell spokesperson who spoke to MarketWatch. Whether that number surprises you or not, it’s worth noting that a different fast-food chain has actually been paying managers quite a bit more—and for quite a while. At In-N-Out-Burger, the average salary for a restaurant manager is more than $160,000 per year, as Denny Warnick, vice president of operations, told MarketWatch. He also told the news outlet the chain has been paying managers $100,000 or more for the last decade.
Now, these numbers are, sadly, not representative of what most fast-food workers make. For example, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median pay for a similar position in the restaurant sector was just $54,240 in 2018. For lower-level food and beverage service workers, the BLS reports the median pay as just over $20,000 per year. This is all without considering benefits like paid time off or health insurance, either.
That’s not nearly enough to live off of, which is why it’s not surprising that a 2013 study found that 52% of fast-food workers use public assistance. Of note is that about 24% use SNAP (also known as food stamps or EBT) and just under 20% have Medicaid.
If one’s gut reaction to these numbers is “get a better job” or “do something more valuable,” it’s important to sit with the following statistics, too. According to a 2015 analysis, 25% of part-time college faculty use public assistance. Close to 50% of home-care workers do. That number is similar when you look at people who work in child care, coming in at 46%. These jobs—just like working in food service—require skills, forms of education, and seriously draining labor. Most families who receive SNAP benefits have at least one person working, though people who don’t (or can’t) work still deserve to survive.
Fast food always gets a reaction, and it’s rarely just about the quality of the food. Whether it’s Popeye’s fried chicken sandwich craze, Chick-fil-A boycotts, or whether or not it’s “healthy,” mention fast food and you’re certain to get a response. One aspect of fast food that tends to be left untouched in cultural conversations, however, is how very hard fast-food workers work. And how deeply undervalued their roles are.
If one stereotype persists about fast food, it’s that workers are unskilled. It’s an easy job! You’re basically a zombie, chucking burgers through a drive-thru window! You don’t even need to finish school to do it! Those stereotypes are not just wrong—working in the service industry is anything but easy—but actually harmful.
A career spent in fast food might not be someone’s dream job (though there’s no shame in enjoying it), but that certainly doesn’t mean it’s an easy one. Fast food requires one to make quick decisions, abide by food and health regulations, remember a ton of information, perform physical labor, and yes, deal with people. And while dealing with customers can have a particularly exhausting effect on tipped workers, it’s never easy to manage the mental load of a constant stream of hungry people. Especially not if those people don't value what you’re doing. We already know that raising the minimum wage helps to prevent suicide; imagine how much happier the collective would be if people weren’t suffering for wages they can’t survive on.
Are six-figure salaries the way of the future for fast food? It’s hard to imagine it’ll go that far. Right now, the Fight for $15, led by fast-food workers and now a global movement, is putting up a brave and long-haul fight for a wage that comes in at far below the 100K mark. But what can, at a minimum, become a new normal is a shift in the cultural conversation when we talk about fast-food workers.