Why do wages fail to be right? – NBC4 Washington

The only moment Tianna Yeldell has for herself is when she is sleeping, and that doesn’t happen much.

The 44-year-old single mother of three works 80 hours a week to provide the needs of her children, 8, 14 and 18 years old. During the day, she is a driver for Pizza Hut, where she earns $ 9.50 an hour before the tips. At night, it cleans the trains for the Houston Metro System, where it earns about $ 17 per hour.

Occasionally she attracts both tournaments, Yeldell sleeps only two to three hours before her children get up and prepare for school. Then she does it again.

Yeldell is among the millions of fast food workers across the US they seek to pass. Circle two -thirds Of these are women, according to the American Bureau of Labor Statistics, and many are supporting their families with minimum wages located on the Federal Government floor of $ 7.25 per hour.

Fast food workers are disproportionately Hispanic, accounting for 24.6% of the workforce of the industry compared to 18.8% of the general labor force. And more than half of all fast food workers in the US are 20 years old and over, “contrary to the myth that it is a teenage job they do for money only,” said Tsedeye Gebreselassie, a lawyer for the nonprofit organization of advocacy “National Employment Law Project”.

President Donald TrumpWHO directed the rash station to a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania While in the footsteps of the campaign last year, he admitted that the minimum federal wage is “very low” and that he would consider its growth, but that making this would be “complicated”.

Former President Donald Trump worked in a McDonalds of Bucks County on Sunday and continued to cast doubt, without evidence, in the summer work of Vice President Kamala Harris years ago in one of the fast food chain restaurants. NBC10 political journalist Lauren May reports.

Meanwhile, a growing number of states have led to raising their minimum wage in the face of high record inflation in recent years. Voters in Alaska approved a November voting initiative that will raise the state minimum wage to $ 15 per hour from $ 11.73 per hour by 2027. $ 30 per hour by 2026. And California – which has one of the highest living costs in the country – in April increased salaries for fast food workers, to $ 20 per hour from dollars per hour.

By the end of this year, 23 countries and 65 cities and circuits will increase the level of the minimum wage, according to a report of the National Project of Employment Law of December 2024, which is elected in legislation across the country.

But not Texas, where Jeldell and her family live. It is one of the 20 countries at the $ 7.25 federal minimum wage level and this rate has not declined since 2009. Texas Democratic lawmakers have repeatedly proposed legislation to increase the minimum wage in the state. Prevention laws, which exist in Texas and many other countries, block cities and circuits from the adoption of their minimum wage laws, presenting another obstacle.

Today, a lifestyle for an adult that raises three children in the Houston Metro area is $ 57.65 per hour, according to MIT’s lifestyle calculator. For yeldell, it is not possible to withstand her fast food work, so she should work a second job.

Still dressed in the mask and gray shirt “No One Out Pizzas The Hut”, she falls aside after a last job shift, supporting a elbow on the folding table surrounded by four folding chairs where the family eats. Living room furniture is scarce, but the house is regular. A yellow wipe bucket stands near the entrance and a small vacuum stands at the closet door. It only takes a moment to rest before she is worn with Looney Tunes’ sports pants and a yellow blouse, gather guilt on the baby dinner dishes and pack the waste. Then the teens disappear in their bedrooms and its smallest lined with Minecraft leaning next to it on the sofa, playing a game on a scarlet keyboard.

“I don’t want to work two jobs – I’m very tired. But I need it because things don’t pay enough, ”Yeldell said. “I would not be able to provide a roof over my children’s head … They come first, I come second.”

Jackie Crea i NBC talks with a work advocate about future changes.

Associated Press Contacted Pizza Hut, as well as her parent company, Yum Brands, on comments on the salaries of fast food workers, but did not hear answers.

Wages are just one of the many issues facing fast food workers. Uncredible hours, restricted access to paid medical leave and challenging interactions with clients, all form their experiences, said Daniel Schneider, co -director and co -founder of the Shift project, a joint Harvard project and the University of California, San Francisco that explores the conditions and working of the service sector.

The theft of wages and other violations of the law are also common in the industry, added work researcher David Madland, a senior associate at the US Progress Center.

“The fast food industry is known for low wages and poor working conditions,” Madland said. “It is seen almost as the type of typical cast work that politics has taken care of very little.”

Yeldell’s Pizza Hut remittances sometimes go until 11pm she holds a knife in his pocket, as well as a flashlight, to keep it safe.

Despite the challenges, Yeldell holds a positive view of her work, which she started about a year and a half ago as a transport driver and has since learned to do “almost everything” in her store in Fresno, Texas, including production of pizza, preparation. Ingredients and register execution.

“Pizza Hut is a really easy job and work is hard if it makes it difficult,” she said. “And I’m a quick student, so she doesn’t bother me. The only time it’s worrying is when we are slow and they say, ‘Oh, we have to cut your hours’.

Compare Texas with California, which now has the highest minimum wage of fast food from any state that when lawmakers approved a minimum wage of $ 20 per hour for those workers.

Angelica Hernandez, 51, who worked in different McDonald’s Restaurants for 20 years and now works for a Monterey Park location in Los Angeles County, said the growth helped him pay rent and bills in time, avoid delayed tariffs and buy “a little more” in the grocery store. It has also allowed her family the opportunity to go out to eat on weekends, “which I have never been able to do before, so it is a great achievement that fast food workers could win,” She said.

But Hernandez says most of the growth was swallowed by a latest rental increase in $ 200. “We need a little more to be able to save money and buy clothes without being tight every two weeks or without having to use credit,” she said.

Now, Hernandez is a member of the California Rapid Food Workers’ Union and a member of the Council of the Rapid Food Council, created by the new California law and aimed at improving working conditions.

Critics of the law say that continuing to increase the minimum wage is not the solution, arguing that it has raised prices and reduced employment opportunities for young people, suppressing exclusivity in an already scarce margin industry.

“When you see an increase in operating costs very dramatically over a short period of time, this creates challenges,” said Jot Condie, President and CEO of the California Restaurant Association, which opposed the law. He added that the exclusivity, who are essentially small business owners, are the most affected.

But a September report from the University of California, the Institute for Research on Work and Employment in Berkeley called the effects of the new “good” law and found that politics did not adversely affect employment and raised prices about 3.7%, or about 15 cents A $ 4 hamburger.

For Yeldell, the increase in the minimum wage in Texas “would be fairer”.

“If other states can change, you can also change,” she said.

Its fatigue shines: its movements are slow and the eyelids fall. Between her two jobs, she has no vacation days, so her activities with children should happen in the days she works in a job, not both. But it makes it happen.

A Friday morning at 7am, she walks her youngest at the bus stop, then takes her daughter around the city to take pictures of the elderly before her shift begins In Pizza Hut.

In the photography studio, Yeldell and her daughter posing for a selfie on a background that reads the “class of ’25”. Yeldell wears a graceful, royal blue dress that reads “Faith” in White Text Torship, her daughter with a black hat and a dress. The hair of both women is arranged in long elegant braids with curly peaks.

“Being a mother, I do what I have to do for my children,” she said.

But despite her tireless work, Yeldell says the family has little or no savings. In the good months, she says she has about $ 100 left. Often, she has nothing, which leaves no room for vacation, or exit with children.

“At the end of the day, I’ve worked all these hours and really have nothing to tell about it, but just paying some bills,” she said.

Minimum wage laws vary throughout the US, but how far does it actually lead you an hour of work? We share it by oreo … How many oreo can you buy with the minimum wage of your state.