While the average McDonalds employee in the United States makes just above the $7.25 minimum wage, that story is different in other countries. As Jordan Weissmann reports at The Atlantic, the minimum wage for full-time adult workers in Australia is $14.50 and McDonalds employees just negotiated a 15 percent raise by 2016. Yet the company has about 900 locations in the country.
Meanwhile, its profit margins at company-owned restaurants are higher in Europe than in the U.S. despite many countries there having a higher minimum wage. France’s minimum is about $12 an hour, and yet there are more than 1,200 locations there.
Residents of other countries pay more for their Big Macs, in part at least to make up for those extra costs, but the increase in prices is not drastic. Australians paid an average of $4.62 in U.S. dollars for a Big Mac in July and it cost $4.66 in the eurozone, while Americans paid $4.56. That’s a difference of about 6 to 10 extra cents, which would mean raising Big Mac prices a little over 2 percent in the U.S. to come equal with those in Europe.
Higher prices are related to the fact that the company does spend more on the cost of labor in other countries. In the U.S., it spends about 25 percent of its expenses on workers at the locations it owns, and franchises usually assume labor costs will take up about 30 to 35 percent. Worldwide, those costs have been found to come to closer to 45 percent of expenses. But the company reported nearly $5.5 billion in net income overall last year, up from about $2.4 billion in 2007, with more revenues coming from Europe than the U.S.
Australian locations have other ways to keep labor costs low, like exploiting a loophole that only requires an $8 wage for teenagers. Weissmann also reports that the company likely gives its higher paid European employees more responsibility and so ekes out more productivity from those workers. While productivity has risen in the U.S., wages haven’t.
But it’s clear, even to the company itself, that its American wages are not enough to get by on. It released a sample budget for employees that suggested paying nothing for heat, getting a second job, and spending just $20 a month on health care. While it claims to be an above minimum wage employer in the U.S., its average wages are mere cents more.
The inability to get by on its low wages has sparked pushback from workers across the country, with fast food workers striking in nine different cities. They are calling for a $15 minimum wage, the same as Australia’s, which is higher than President Obama’s $9 an hour proposal and Congressional Democrats’ of $10.10 an hour.
This article originally appeared on ThinkProgress on August 6, 2013. Reprinted with permission.
About the Author: Bryce Covert is the Economic Policy Editor for ThinkProgress. She was previously editor of the Roosevelt Institute’s Next New Deal blog and a senior communications officer. She is also a contributor for The Nation and was previously a contributor for ForbesWoman.
