the problem within our food system and its workers

Alexis Bernier

Blog post – April 8, 2016

            Today in class we talked about minimum wage and the hourly wages for food workers in America. We watched a video where a boy asked his parents where they get the food from and the parents answer was “the store”. Well in the video, over 30 people walked in the house, from the grocery store workers to the chefs, farmers, etc. It was crazy to me watching that video because honestly, I’ve never really thought about where our food came from besides animals or the store. It opened my eyes up to know that so many people every day are preparing our foods and we don’t really take the time to acknowledge them or even thank them. Instead, we really just take them for granted.

            Another thing we talked about in class is the minimum wage and the hourly wages for food workers. I have a lot of mixed feelings about the minimum wage right now in Massachusetts and the laws surrounding it to increase it to $15. Right now in Mass, the hourly minimum wage is $10 and right now, fast food workers are petitioning it to get it to $15 an hour. Call me crazy, but I believe this is outright unjust. In my opinion, I don’t think fast food workers deserve to make $15 an hour. I believe that working at a fast food restaurant should not be your goal and you should be setting yourself up higher. Working at a fast food place should be for young people such as high school students, or college students, not for people who have families and need to support others. It may sound harsh, but working at a fast food place for your whole life isn’t good. You possess minimum skills to work at a fast food place, you don’t need a college degree, nor do you sometimes need to pass a drug test, so why should you make $15 an hour, which is more than some nurses, emts, etc. To me, I just don’t think its right. Although I believe fast food workers don’t deserve $15 an hour, the problem with real restaurant workers is a nightmare. Waiters and waitresses only make about $3 an hour and live off of tips, which sometimes people don’t even tip. I feel like their hourly wage should be raised. $3 an hour is basically nothing and most people say receiving a paycheck is just a “formality” because really, who gets excited over a $20 check? There are so many problems within our food system and our food workers and something definitely needs to be done about it soon or nothing will change!