In 100 cities across the country on Thursday, workers at fast-food restaurants will strike in demand of higher wages. The employees are arguing that they cannot support their families, or even just themselves, on minimum wage, which is $7.25 or $15,000 a year. Strikers are pushing for pay to be raised to $15 an hour.
“You really can’t make all your income meet. You can’t really pay for all your bills; you can pay for like two bills, and then after that you don’t have that much money,” said Wendy’s employee, Dominique Mackson. “It’s hard to make ends meet.”
However, they are many opponents to a nationwide wage increase, as it would ultimately lead to higher prices, a consequence that does not appeal to fast-food businesses which thrive off their cheap products.
President Obama has been making a similar push for higher wages and equal employment opportunity though, and in a recent speech he emphasized the need to diminish the opportunity gap. “The opportunity gap in America is now as much about class as it is about race, and that gap is growing,” President Obama said. “So if we’re going to take on growing inequality, and try to improve upward mobility for all people, we’ve got to move beyond the false notion that this is an issue exclusively of minority concern.”
