Time for a raise for workers at the fast-food counter

Thursday, Aug. 8, 2013 | 2 a.m.

Hundreds of low-paid fast-food workers and their supporters boisterously demanded improved wages last week with rallies and marches in numerous cities.

Cheers to them. Let’s hope their employers, state legislators and congressional representatives take notice.

America’s expanding low-wage economy is shameful and foolish. It is wishful thinking to expect a robust economic rebound when one in seven Americans lives in poverty and about 15 million Americans work at or near the minimum wage, which is $7.25 an hour at the federal level.

Wages at that level shrink buying power and require more government spending. Republicans in Congress who gripe about too many Americans receiving food stamps and other forms of aid should look at increasing people’s earning power. The median income for households of working age fell more than 10 percent from 2000 to 2010. One in four private-sector workers makes less than $10 an hour.

The recent labor protests spotlighted fast-food workers who do the heavy lifting for an industry notorious for low pay. Front-line workers earn a median wage of $8.94 an hour, according to a new report by the National Employment Law Project.

Contrary to what many people think, and what defenders of the status quo erroneously claim, fast-food restaurants aren’t a clubby hangout for teenagers who live at home and need gas money. The median age of the person who takes the order or cooks the fries is over 29. Many of them have families to support.

Besides low wages, employers make life difficult for fast-food workers by skimping on their hours. At the moment, they find it convenient to blame Obamacare, which in time will require larger employers to purchase health insurance for workers who clock 30 or more hours a week, or else pay a fine. But that requirement won’t take effect for more than a year. Health care reform appears to be the latest excuse for an industry that has never encouraged a stable workforce with livable wages and benefits.

Participants in the union-coordinated national protests are calling for pay at the fast-food restaurants to be raised to $15 an hour. That’s aiming high, considering the resistance among business groups and their political allies to any pay increase for unskilled workers.

President Barack Obama’s call for a $9-an-hour minimum wage would be a good start, although it wouldn’t entirely make up for lost ground. If today’s low-wage workers had the same purchasing power as the minimum-wage workforce did in 1968, they would be earning close to $10.65 an hour.

A group of more than 100 economists, who signed a petition this summer in support of an effort in Congress to lift the minimum wage to $10.50 an hour, estimated that the raise would increase business costs in the fast-food industry by about 2.7 percent. Half of the increase could be paid for by raising the price of a Big Mac by a nickel, the economists calculated. That is not a lot to ask.

Low-wage workers generally don’t have much of a voice. It is heartening to see them speak out. The trick now is to get the right people to listen and to act.