How a Raise for Fast Food Workers Will Help WNY

A scene from the April 15 fast food workers' strike in Buffalo, coordinated by the Coalition for Economic Justice.

How a Raise for Fast Food Workers Will Help WNY

Published June 4, 2015

Governor Andrew Cuomo has formed a wage board, chaired by Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown, to consider raising the wages of fast food workers throughout the state of New York. On June 5, Partnership for the Public Good Co-Director Sam Magavern will testify before the Wage Board in favor of raising the wage to $15 per hour. PPG summarizes some of the relevant research in its new brief for the Open Buffalo Innovation Lab, noting, among other things:

  • Raising the pay of service sector jobs is critical to reducing Buffalo’s poverty and the myriad problems that it causes;
  • Fast food workers are the lowest paid workers in the nation, even though McDonald’s made profits of $5.46 billion in 2012 and paid its CEO $13.7 million;
  • Because of their inadequate pay, New York’s fast food workers must rely on public assistance, at an average cost of $6,800 per year – a total charge to New York taxpayers of $700 million.
  • McDonald’s and Burger King operate profitably in Denmark, where the least they can pay a worker is $20 per hour.

Read the full brief here.