Just 13.5 Percent Of Food Workers Make A Living Wage

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/06/food-workers-living-wage_n_1574099.html

What did you have for breakfast today?

Chances are good it came to you by way of someone barely making a living.

A new report from the Food Chain Workers Alliance offers a grim portrait of the American food industry, which employs nearly 20 million people (h/t Mother Jones). The report examines the economic situation of food workers of every stripe -- from farmers to line cooks to slaughterhouse workers to grocery store employees to the people who drive the trucks.

Out of this whole population, according to the report, just 40 percent are earning enough to put them over the local poverty line. And only 13.5 percent of food workers -- fewer than one in seven -- are earning what the report calls a living wage, an income at least one and a half times as high as the local poverty threshold.
In other words, a lot of food workers are going hungry.

The Food Chain Workers Alliance isn't a neutral party here; the group is an advocacy organization composed of food industry employees, and according to its website, one of its goals is to "improve the wages and working conditions of food system workers and their families."

Still, the report -- based on almost 700 interviews with food industry workers -- is notable for its detail, delving into the high injury and sickness rates among food workers, the industry's relative lack of health care coverage, and the dearth of opportunities for many workers to move up the ladder or into a better job.

The report also serves as a disquieting counterpoint to the sunny press releases issued lately by the National Restaurant Association boasting about the hundreds of thousands of food service jobs that the industry created or that the NRA expects to materialize soon.

Many of those jobs, according to one economist, will likely be low-wage positions that soak up workers whose skills would be put to better use elsewhere in a more dynamic economy.

You can't be a leader in the world of innovation producing onions and potatoes .......let another country do it......just ask NCMikey or his boyfriend Zimmie.

I used to own a restaurant and can tell you the profit margins are thin. It's labor-intensive and the job seemingly never ends. We sold it a few years ago and will never do it again. Our employees didn't make a 'living wage', but none of them were the bread-winners of the family or wear younger kids just getting started. When I was a kid I was a busboy, then a dishwasher, then a cook, and never made a pile of money. So what? If you don't like the pay, find something else. America is a free country.

The minimum wage laws hurt small businesses, and if you try to force restaurants to pay even more, they will close their doors because they won't be able to compete. You want to pay a reasonable price for a meal but don't want to know how you got it for that price. This is just stupid liberal thinking.

Who forces these people to do these jobs?

Who decides what a living wage is?

What do you make of the effect of wages on consumer prices and the inevitable contradiction this would (and does) create when the Market is meddled with?

When we mandate that all low skilled, entry level jobs pay whatever you think is "fair", rather than what the Market decides is fair, what will you have to say to the countless people who will no longer have these jobs?

What will a cheeseburger and fries cost when the high school junior cooking them is earning "a living wage"?

Living wage again? Lol....listen sparky, you make what your skills dictate...anyone, even retards can do these low skill jobs....no one ever promised anyone a "living wage". Learn a trade develop skills that are marketable, no on owes you a thing

"Yes, I would like to order one of your $52.78 Big Macs please"

The minimum wage law really hurt as, as it does other small businesses. Forcing us to pay high-school kids $7.25 per hour who worked part-time AND received tip income of at least another $5 or $6 per hour was ludicrous.

fixed

Just because you were a terrible owner is no reason to blame Democrats ! Try selling liquor next time you jackass !

Does thus include wait staff? Cause they are all a bunch of lying tax cheats .

I cooked 2 eggs, some ham this morning and made a pot of coffee.

Cost less then 2 bucks.

You make it sound like the restaurant is paying out the tips.

Uh... This is AMERICA. You don't like your pay, you get better skills and get a new job. That's called FREEDOM. You are free to resign from your current employee and seek a new job. FREEDOM.

I made shit money my first few jobs out of school. Guess what?

I found new jobs. I bettered my skills.

It's called... You guessed it... FREEDOM.

No one owes you a damn thing. Fucking Living Wage. WTF? Have people gotten this lazy, unmotivated and entitled?? What the fuck happened to ingenuity, better one's self and taking matters into your own hands for upward mobility?

Assuming you walked to the grocery store to get your food, and used a camp fire to cook it, on a frying pan you found... then sure.

Just like the constitution says....Life, Liberty and more money

It's funny how the repussicans support taking from those that are doing the heavy lifting but whine and pout about those at the top that are stealing the fruits of the of that labor while contributing nothing.

Most times in business today, the choking off of low-level workers comes only because of the gluttony enjoyed by those at the top.

A legitimate business in the food industry can afford to pay living wages -- if yours can't, you don't really HAVE a business to begin with...now, do you? Someone has do the grunt work -- if you don't want to do it yourself, it's gonna cost you.

So, pay up and stop complaining -- so your wife's next car is a Ford instead of a Benz, deal with it.

flipping hamburgers and changing sheets on a bed is the "heavy lifting" to you?......

Actually, kids used to do the work. Now it's below them.

You make it sound like patrons aren't

Uh... No. No one has to deal with anything they don't want to deal with it, jack off.
Once again... REPEAT AFTER ME:
You don't like your pay?
You think you're worth more?

Then leave your job. Get a new one. That's YOUR FREE WILL.
I will pay you XX, with the ramification being you will leave if you don't think it's enough. That's my risk; that's your risk. No one can FORCE me to pay you more. That's tyranny.

I had one of my Indian developers tell me "My community thinks I should be getting paid more".
You know what I told him?

OK, then get a job with your community.

So it cost me $655,502.33

Cost of my rig, clothes, edumacation, house and haircut.

I should have went to McDonald's.

So if a man wants to get his wife a Benz then you consider that person a bad person?

When did you get on the rule committee of life?