TiAnna Yeldell, a 44-year-old single mother, works exceptionally long hours, balancing two jobs to support her three children on minimum wage earnings. Despite her strenuous schedule, she only manages two to three hours of sleep. Yeldell represents a larger trend among fast food workers in the U.S., where two-thirds are women and many are older than 20. With recent increases in state minimum wages to counteract inflation, discussions around federal wage increases are ongoing, highlighting the socioeconomic struggles faced by workers like Yeldell.
During the day, she is a driver for Pizza Hut, where she earns $9.50 an hour before tips. At night, she cleans trains for Houston's Metro system, where she earns about $17 an hour.
Fast food workers are disproportionately Hispanic, making up 24.6% of the industry's workforce compared with 18.8% of the overall workforce.
More than half of all U.S. fast food workers are 20 or older, contrary to the myth of it being a teenage job that they just do for pocket money.
Voters in Alaska approved a ballot initiative in November that will raise the state's minimum wage to $15 an hour from $11.73 an hour by 2027.
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