Fast Food Nation - Eric Schlosser [167]
the real value of wages in the restaurant industry: See Patrick Barta, “Rises in Many Salaries Barely Keep Pace with Inflation,” Wall Street Journal, February 1, 2000.
roughly 3.5 million fast food workers: The figure was supplied by the National Restaurant Association.
by far the largest group of minimum wage earners in the United States: Interview with Alan B. Krueger, professor of politics and economics at Princeton University.
The only Americans who consistently earn: Fast food workers are at the bottom of the restaurant industry’s pay scale, and the industry pays the lowest wages of any nonagricultural endeavor. Similarly, migrant farm workers are at the bottom of the agricultural pay scale. Although some farm laborers earn a decent hourly wage, many are paid the minimum wage — or less. See “Non-Farm Industries — Employees and Earnings, 1980–1998,” Statistical Abstract, p. 436; and Eric Schlosser, “In the Strawberry Fields,” Atlantic Monthly, November 1995.
approximately three hamburgers: My estimate is based on the following: Per capita consumption of ground beef is now about thirty pounds a year, with the vast majority consumed as hamburgers. A regular hamburger patty at McDonald’s weighs 1.6 ounces; using that as a standard, Americans eat about three hundred burgers a year (five to six a week). Using a Quarter Pounder as the standard, Americans eat about 120 hamburgers a year (at least two a week). The consumption figure that I’ve used assumes an average patty weight somewhere between 1.6 and 4 ounces. See “Hamburger Consumption Takes a Hit, But a Reversal of Fortune Is in Offing,” National Provisioner, August 1999.
four orders of french fries every week: Per capita consumption of frozen potato products (a category that is almost entirely french fries) is about 30 pounds a year. A regular order of french fries at McDonald’s weighs 68 grams. Converting the pounds to kilograms and then dividing that number by 68 leaves you with the number of annual french fry servings: 205 (about four per week). See “Potatoes: U.S. Per Capita Utilization by Category, 1991–1999,” USDA Economic Research Service, 2000.
new restaurants are opening there at a faster pace: See “1999 to Mark Eighth Consecutive Year of Growth for Restaurant Industry,” news release, National Restaurant Association, December 22, 1998.
8 “interstate socialism”: Stephen B. Goddard, Getting There: The Epic Struggle between Road and Rail in the American Century (New York: Basic Books, 1994), p. 179.
the inflation-adjusted value of the minimum wage: Between 1968 and and 1989 the real value of the minimum wage fell from $7.21 to $4.24; in 1995, it stood at $4.38. See “Federal Minimum Wage Rates: 1954–1996,” Statistical Abstract, p. 447.
more prison inmates than full-time farmers: Today there are fewer than 1 million full-time farmers in the United States. And there are about 1.3 million people in the nation’s prisons. For the number of full-time farmers, see “Appendix Table 21 — Characteristics of Farms and Their Operators, by Farm Typology Group, 1996,” Rural Conditions and Trends, USDA Economic Research Service, February 1999. For the number of prison inmates, see “Nation’s Prison and Jail Population Reaches 1,860,520,” press release, Bureau of Justice Statistics, April 19, 2000.
9 “the irrationality of rationality”: See Ritzer, The McDonaldization of America, pp. 121–42.
1. The Founding Fathers
I spent an afternoon with Carl Karcher at his Anaheim office. My account of his life is largely based on that interview and on a pair of corporate histories: B. Carolyn Knight, Making It Happen: The Story of Carl Karcher Enterprises (Anaheim, Calif.: Carl Karcher Enterprises, 1981); and Carl Karcher with B. Carolyn Knight, Never Stop Dreaming: 50 Years of Making It Happen (San Marcos, Calif.: Robert Erdmann Publishing, 1991). For the