The protests hit around 190 cities including every major city in the U.S. The rallies are the latest in a two-year old movement to increase state and federal minimum wages to $15 per hour. Thursday’s protests included sit-ins at McDonalds, Arby’s, Taco Bell, Burger King and Wendy’s around the country by workers in fast-food, health care, airline and other industries.
— Revolution News (@NewsRevo) December 4, 2014
The latest phase builds on protests in 150 cities that occurred in September when more than 500 people were arrested for occupying various establishments.
Demonstrators are also calling for the right to unionize without retaliation from their employers.
While some states and cities have recently enacted slightly higher minimum wages, the federal minimum wage hasn’t changed in five years and currently sits at $7.25 per hour.
At that rate, a full-time worker would only earn just over $15,000 per year, an income that activists say leaves them choosing between paying rent and feeding their families.
In states that do have higher minimum wages, most are around $8 or $9 per hour.
— Low Pay Is Not OK (@LowPayIsNotOK) December 4, 2014
When put in real dollar terms, the U.S. has a very low minimum wage when compared to the rest of the world, though it used to be one of the highest.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development compared minimum wage levels to the median wages of full-time workers in 28 different countries.
The U.S. minimum wage is just 37 percent of the country’s median wage ranking it at 26 among the countries compared. Top payer Turkey, on the other hand, pays a minimum wage that is 69% of their median wage. Next, Chile pays 68% while France pays 61%.
The only to countries that pay less than the U.S.: the Czech Republic and Mexico.
According to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), the current minimum wage for full-time workers falls below the federal poverty threshold for family of two. This was not the case 30 years ago. The EPI published a report suggesting a minimum-wage increase to at least $10.10 would actually be good for the economy.
“Raising the federal minimum wage to $10.10 by 2016 would return the federal minimum wage to roughly the same inflation-adjusted value it had in the late 1960s,” the study said. “An increase to $10.10 would either directly or indirectly raise the wages of 27.8 million workers, who would receive about $35 billion in additional wages over the phase-in period. Across the phase-in period of the increase, GDP would grow by about $22 billion, resulting in the creation of roughly 85,000 net new jobs over that period.”
— AFL-CIO (@AFLCIO) December 4, 2014
However, the National Restaurant Association has dismissed calls for living wages and blamed the protests on labor unions.
“National labor groups and their allies have spent millions of dollars on a coordinated campaign to paint an inaccurate and unfair portrait of America’s restaurants,” they said in a statement. “The union-led demonstrations are orchestrated PR events designed to push their own agenda while attacking an industry that provides opportunity to millions of Americans.”
Apparently, minimum-wage earners should be happy with such “opportunities” to stay below the poverty line.
