The $15 minimum wage and fast-food labor activism

Guests: Kate Goodman, Jordan Weissman, William Finnegan

The fast-food worker movement has been gaining momentum in recent months as more and more data suggests that employees of America’s largest franchises are having difficulty making ends meet.  Many have suggested that raising the minimum wage would assuage the situation.  Nationally, the minimum wage stands at $7.25, with many advocates aiming for $10.10 an hour as the new standard.  But, some workers-rights organizations have gone beyond the accepted watermark of $10.10 an hour, claiming that $15 an hour should be the new minimum.  These efforts proved successful in Seattle, whose city council recently passed a $15 minimum wage, arguably the highest on the planet, to be fully implemented by 2021.  To discuss this, we are joined by KATE GOODMAN, lead organizer for 15Now in Philadelphia, an advocacy group that seeks to raise the national minimum wage to $15 an hour.  We’ll also be joined by JORDAN WEISSMAN, senior business and economics reporter for Slate.  Then, we’ll get a broader picture of the fast-food worker movement from WILLIAM FINNEGAN, who recently wrote an article for The New Yorker entitled “Dignity: Fast-food workers and a new form of labor activism.”