Customers dining at Chipotle restaurants will see higher food prices thanks to a newly announced employee pay raise to $15 an hour.
The fast-casual Mexican food chain said menu prices will be raised by as much as 4% in order to mitigate the employee pay raises announced last month, which will pay employees $15 per hour by the end of June.
“It made sense in this scenario to invest in our employees and get these restaurants staffed and make sure that we have the pipeline of people to support our growth,” Chipotle CEO Brian Niccol said about the move. “And then with that, we’ve taken some pricing to cover some of that investment.”
Democrats across the country have actively pushed to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour and recently failed to attach that provision into a recent COVID-19 spending package.
Republicans, who largely opposed the minimum wage increase, have voiced concerns about costs being passed on to consumers, as is the case with Chipotle, and studies show that minimum wage increases kill jobs and force small businesses to close.
Additionally, critics of raising the minimum wage have cited studies showing that the increase ends up hurting low-skilled workers, the workers that wage increase advocates are purportedly trying to help.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer recently called on Democrats to continue their push to raise the minimum wage by passing the Raise the Wage Act in the Senate, which would raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2025.
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“We have to lessen the gap between the rich and poor. We have to give working people that view that if they work hard, they can have a better life, and their kids can have a better life from them,” the New York Democrat said. “When you work at subsistence wages, you can’t do it.”
