Do you want to pay more for your Chipotle burrito? Put a $15 minimum wage into effect.
In the company’s quarterly earnings call on Wednesday, Chipotle’s chief financial officer, Jack Hartung, said the fast-casual restaurant chain would see a significant increase in labor costs if a national $15 minimum wage hike is implemented, Business Insider reported.
President Joe Biden announced his support for raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour in his first speech of the campaign, and many other Democrats are pushing for it.
Hartung called the upward price pressure of such a hike “manageable,” saying it would represent a 10 percent increase in average wages for the chain.
“We’re not that far off of, like, for example, a $15 number. But let’s say, for example, that there’s going to be an across-the-board 10 percent increase in our wages,” he said. “And that would, to offset that with menu pricing, that would take us 2 percent to 3 percent price increase.
“All of that is very manageable,” Hartung added.
This would result in a $0.20 to $0.35 additional cost per meal if the price increases were what Hartung said they would be, Business Insider reported; the average Chipotle customer spends $11 on a meal there.
However, overall wages would increase by 15 percent for all employees and 35 percent for entry-level employees. While Hartung was clear on what he predicted the effect on the chain’s prices would be, he didn’t provide any information on how that would affect jobs or hours going forward. – READ MORE
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