There are a lot of posts on X about “the minimum wage”. But only about 1% of wage earners in the U.S. earn “minimum wage”. In fact, about 87% of wage earners earn $15 or more per hour. Consequently, most of these posts are kind of out of touch with the real world.
The market itself sets the minimum wage. And the going rate for low skilled fast food labor is much higher than the “minimum wage”. The effect is that the minimum wage is irrelevant.
Fast food jobs used to be something that teens and a few young adults just out of high school did while developing work skills. These jobs were never viewed as a career. But at some point, activists began pushing the idea that these are “career” jobs worthy of high skill pay levels.
A side effect is many of us have given up going out to eat. I’ve been out once this year – on my birthday – and that was just a food truck court. $50 for two people. Not a restaurant but a food truck. When traveling we tend to buy stuff in a grocery store and if necessary, pickup a grocery deli sandwich ($5 to $8) versus the $20 at a fast food outlet. People make substitutions when prices get out of whack.
Mapped: Fast Food Wages in Every U.S. State
