Food Service Workers Can’t Afford to Eat the Food They Serve

Workers in the food industry earn some of the lowest wages in the U.S. economy, and after a long day of preparing, cooking, or serving food at work, many struggle to put food on their own tables.

A hefty 29% of U.S. jobs were linked to the food and agricultural industries in 2021, and job growth in food sectors is on the rise. But the low pay has consequences. According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, 11.3% of workers in food preparation and service were enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in 2018. These food workers were ranked third highest for SNAP enrollment rates out of all occupations.

“Food workers are about two and a half times more likely to be food insecure than workers in other sectors of the economy, which is so ironic. [T]hey’re the ones creating the food that we all eat, but also because of how many workers there are in the food system. There are more than 21.5 million people,” explained Jose Oliva, an experienced labor organizer and the campaigns director for HEAL Food Alliance, a coalition to transform food systems.

Workers and researchers agree that low wages and a longstanding lack of labor protections in the service industry fuel inequality. The best way to tackle these issues is through robust union protections and reevaluating the systemic ways our food systems are designed to capitalize on the exploitation of vulnerable people. But across the U.S., it’s an uphill battle for workers to unionize and protect themselves from the corporate powers that retaliate against unions.

The Fight for Livable Wages

At 55, Arnice Sykes has worked in food service in Atlanta, Georgia, for several years. At first, it seemed like a great opportunity, but she quickly realized that “half the time, it’s not what you signed up for.”

At her previous job at Church’s, Sykes said she regularly had to forgo the breaks she was legally entitled to whenever the restaurant got too busy, and there were restrictions on the shift meals the staff received. Usually this meant they were given small servings that they were required to eat at the restaurant.

“If I’m working and don’t have time to take a break, then why can’t I take [the food] home?” Sykes said.

The larger issue to Sykes and other low-wage fast food workers is how paltry the wages are. “They’re not paying you enough to decide if you’re going to grocery shop, or pay your rent, or just pay partial rent,” she said.

Fast food employers pay some of the lowest wages in the U.S. The median pay for fast food jobs is $8.69 an hour, and 87% of fast food workers do not receive health benefits from their employers. Workers nationwide have fought for years to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, which would lift millions of people out of poverty. But in today’s economy, it still wouldn’t be enough to sustain single adults and families in most regions of the country.

In California, fast food workers secured a $20 hourly minimum wage earlier this year. However, nearly six months since the raise went into effect, workers have effectively been punished for their organizing win.

Laura Pozos is a 62-year-old McDonald’s worker in Los Angeles. She’s worked for the corporation for nine years and told Prism that once the $20 wage went into effect, McDonald’s “took it out on” workers by reducing their hours. “Ultimately, I still struggle,” she said. “It’s hard to afford meals with just the 17 hours I have to work per week now.”

Since the California bill was approved, franchises throughout the state have doubled down on cost-cutting measures, including raising menu prices and laying off delivery drivers. While chain restaurants lobby against minimum wage increases, arguing that such legislation would threaten their tight profit margins, some fast food executives at companies like Denny’s and McDonald’s have made remarks admitting that wage increases don’t actually hinder the company. It’s difficult to see how global chains struggle upon seeing figures like McDonald’s CEO’s 2023 compensation of more than $10.8 million, or 1,150 times more than what the company’s average employee earned. Research has also shown that small businesses tend to benefit from paying their employees more as those paychecks get cycled back into their local economy.

“When folks are working jobs that offer less than full-time opportunities or that provide shifts that change on a frequent basis — making it difficult to get a second job and be reliably available — or when there aren’t health care benefits, a family is going to have increased household out-of-pocket expenses,” explained Linda Nageotte, president of Feeding America, a national network of food banks.

A study tracking the effects of Seattle, Washington’s minimum wage boost in 2014 found that many of the city’s workers simultaneously saw wages rise and hours go down. In recent years, minimum wage battles have increasingly entered the purview of city, county, and state governments. The cost of living varies significantly across the U.S., and the federal minimum wage has remained sluggish at $7.25 an hour for the past 15 years.

Sykes issued the reminder that it’s workers who prop up the food service industry yet can’t pay their bills on the wages they earn. “You’ve got people working 20 or 30 years at these restaurants. As adults, we need $25 or more an hour,” she said. “Some of us are retired, and retirement is not enough, so therefore, we have to go back where we fit in, and half the time it’s these restaurants.”

Ken Baker, culinary director for Rethink Food, an organization that redirects excess food from restaurants to community partners, notes that the high employee turnover rates associated with food service directly result from wage issues. “We can never seem to fill all those roles,” he said. “The fact is, the role requires so much demand from the individual, and compensation or wages don’t match that demand.”

Federal tipped minimum wage stands even lower at $2.13 an hour. Workers in these roles are expected to earn the rest of their wages through tips, but those who’ve worked in the service sector know what it’s like to leave nearly empty-handed after a slow shift. Living “tip to mouth” means your income is constantly in flux.

“At my daughter’s school, they started offering free meals to families in the community, and I had to sign up,” Pozos said. “I was getting one package a month that brought soups, rice, beans… I can say right now, all I really have left is a can of beans. It’s really hard to go to the stores and see the high prices because what I’m making is just not enough.”

Mounting Food Insecurity

Feeding America estimates that the average cost per meal in the U.S. is $3.99. At that rate, a week’s worth of meals for one person costs $83.79; for a family of four, that number rises to $335.16. A worker earning the federal minimum wage for 40 hours a week only makes $290 — before taxes.

“Hunger happens because families and households are experiencing low wage employment, difficulties accessing affordable housing, any number of fiscal impacts that can lead to a household needing to make really difficult trade-offs. ‘Do I choose to fill my prescription or put food on the table? Pay the electricity bill or feed the kids?’ Those are impossible choices,” Nageotte said.

Inflation has technically leveled out, but households are still struggling to adapt to higher-priced goods and services, which cost more than 20% higher on average than they did in early 2020. Some blame “shrinkflation,” a practice where companies reduce product sizes without decreasing prices. Democratic politicians are increasingly condemning the consumer burden of high prices, including Vice President Kamala Harris’s remarks in August about ending price gouging in the grocery and food industries.

As if it weren’t bad enough that workers in the food industry are going hungry, food waste from restaurants makes up 15% of all the food that ends up in landfills, and restaurants waste 4-10% of the food they purchase. Rather than donate this food to workers, most of it gets thrown away. Some food waste is related to complying with food safety and health codes, but more often, it’s about the convenience of trashing versus donating. Some chains see food donations as a threat to their brand’s reputation.

Oliva explained that because restaurants are profit-oriented, they see giving away their excess products to staff or community members as depleting their products’ commercial value.

“It’s not as easy as saying if we just passed around the food waste instead of dumping it, that would be the end,” Oliva said. “When people say the food system is broken, I tend to correct them and say, ‘No, it’s perfectly functioning for the people who designed it. Those folks are doing fine with the existing food system, and those folks are the CEOs and the stockholders of these major food corporations that are making a lot of money.”

Starbucks, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and Dunkin’ are just a few of the corporate giants known for their excessive food waste practices. Brave workers often post on social media about the shocking amount of food wasted by their workplaces — food they are prohibited from taking home. “You’re supposed to waste it,” Sykes said. “That’s part of production.”

Making food access even more challenging, government benefits to alleviate poverty have dwindled in recent years. As a result of the pandemic, public schools adopted universal free lunches for students, though the federal government phased out the program in 2022, and schools have reported a serious reduction in student meal purchases since then. Not long after, SNAP — the food assistance program that provides more than 42 million U.S. residents with grocery funds — reduced its pandemic-era allowances, and nonprofit food banks have experienced an increase in client demand ever since.

Republican lawmakers continue to push for stricter SNAP eligibility criteria, such as the clause that “able-bodied adults without dependents” (ABAWDs) prove they’re working at least 80 hours per month or are pursuing an educational or training program. The threshold for those who are considered an ABAWD rose from 52-year-olds to 54-year-olds on Oct. 1. An analysis by the Urban Institute found that in 2023, grocery price inflation outpaced SNAP adjustments in 98% of U.S. counties.

The well-documented intersection of systemic racism, food insecurity, and discrimination in the labor market also disproportionately subjects BIPOC workers to cycles of poverty. Black and Hispanic households experience food insecurity at nearly double the rate of white households in the U.S.

The Case for Unions

Low-wage workers may be warming up to the idea of organizing their collective power, but in 2023, food service workers held some of the lowest union membership rates across all occupations. Just 1.4% of workers in the sector are unionized, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Despite the low numbers, there has been a rise in unionization across the industry since 2022, with notable efforts at large chains such as Starbucks and Chipotle.

“Right now, there’s a sort of renaissance in workers wanting unions or understanding that unions are the only pathway to the middle class for them,” Oliva said. “Restaurant owners make money only when there’s enough turnover in tables, enough customers that come and leave, and then new customers, and that is exactly what unions are trying to mitigate. It’s this workload that is unrealistic and that is also extremely exploitative to the folks who are working there.”

“They want their production, they want their numbers,” Sykes added. “And then you want to pay us kibbles and bits for all this major work you want us to do. We’re working three or four positions, and you’re not even paying us correctly for one.”

Sykes — a member of the Union of Southern Service Workers — went on to describe an experience working at Church’s where the staff was forced to work in extreme heat with broken air conditioners. The grills, fryers, and heat exhaust fans turned the kitchen into a sauna, and the restaurant was short-staffed. “With the union being at my side, I was able to stand up for myself and let them know, ‘No, I’m not going to work in this extreme heat. I’m not going to take this lying down.’ I’ve got a choice of either staying here and suffering the repercussions or walking out and standing up for my rights,” she said.

Just as quickly as food workers’ unions have risen to prominence, the corporate backlash has been swift. In June, the Supreme Court sided with Starbucks in a case centered on a group of workers who claimed the company fired employees for attempting to unionize, a violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act. Experts say the ruling could limit the National Labor Relations Board’s power to investigate allegations of workers’ rights violations at other companies.

Low-wage workers like Pozos find solidarity in unions like the California Fast Food Workers Union. “We’ve worked for these corporations for years, given a lot to these corporations, and so it’s only fair for them to follow the rules by paying us what they should,” she said. “They have the resources to do so, they’re hiring new people, and they don’t want to follow the rules and respect our rights.”

Prism is an independent and nonprofit newsroom led by journalists of color. We report from the ground up and at the intersections of injustice.