Fast Food Costs You More Than You Think

(The image above was found at the website eslpod.com.)

The Republicans would like for all of us to think that those receiving help from government programs are lazy and undeserving of that help. But that is not even close to the truth. About 73% of those enrolled in public benefits programs in the U.S. are from working families -- that's nearly 3 out of every 4 people. These people work hard, and do work that is not only necessary, but work that many who are advantaged by that work would not do themselves. The problem is not that they are lazy (because they aren't). The problem is that they just aren't being paid a livable wage for their hard work.

And one of the primary industries benefitting from vastly underpaying their employees is the fast food industry. Most workers in fast food restaurants are paid at or near minimum wage. More than half of the families of fast food workers are enrolled in government benefit programs -- and that includes more than half of the families of fast food workers who work full-time.

Many of us eat at fast food joints (at least every now and then) because the food is cheap and tastes good. But that is really an illusion. We are paying a lot more for that "cheap" food than most of us realize. That's because the owners of those fast food joints (especially the corporations) are passing on their costs to taxpayers -- costs they should be bearing themselves. By refusing to pay their workers a decent livable wage, those corporations are forcing taxpayers to bear a substantial part of those costs through government benefit programs their workers need just to adequately support their families.

The families of fast food workers receive about $7 billion dollars in public assistance every year -- including $3.9 billion for Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program, more than a billion dollars in food stamps, and about two billion dollars in Earned Income Tax Credit payments. This is all money the taxpayers shouldn't have to be paying, and it amounts to billions of dollars to subsidize the profits of corporations -- a subsidization that is not necessary, since it just pushes healthy profits into the range of exorbitant profits.

It doesn't have to be this way, and both parties have offered solutions. The solution of congressional Republicans is just to kick more people off public assistance -- a hard-hearted solution that doesn't take into account the needs of those hurting families, many of them with children. The solution of congressional Democrats is to raise the minimum wage to a livable level (at least $10 an hour) -- a solution that would make the fast food corporations bear their own costs of doing business, and would take many workers off of public assistance. And the crazy part is that the fast food corporations could absorb those costs fairly easily, with only minimal price raises.

It comes down to a choice. Do you want to pay a few pennies more when you buy fast food, or do you want billions of your tax dollars going to subsidize the profits of corporations. You pay either way, but making the corporations bear their own production costs makes a lot more sense (and it doesn't punish those who don't eat fast food).

Everyone who works hard for a living should be paid a decent and livable wage -- and the taxpayers shouldn't have to be responsible for paying part of that wage through government subsidies to the rich owners.