Potosi, Missouri, is a hard place for teenagers to get jobs. Retail and fast food are mainly the only options for high schoolers to get job experience and earn money to prepare for their future. With the low pay gap for the fast food industry that the town is riddled with, the workers in these jobs believe that they should be allowed to have a raise. Opinions differ on this subject; many believe that fast food is a low-productivity job filled with inexperienced workers.

Though their argument has valid points, the ones that believe they shouldn’t are inexperienced with the cons of fast food that make it stressful and harmful for teens and young adults.

Many fast food jobs are popular because of their inexpensive cost and fast time to receive their food, and many of the people running these positions that make your food are high schoolers working full-time shifts after school, working their way up to save up for their wants and needs.

In Potosi, Missouri, the town relies on fast food because we are a low-income town, so many jobs run by these high schoolers are low-staffed and undertrained, and many customers believe that they are allowed to be rude and harass the workers of many retail and fast food jobs, causing many of the workers to believe they don’t get paid enough to deal with the customers and the busy and stressful rushes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Many statistics on fast food injuries tell us that fast food restaurant employees are at high risk for on-the-job injuries: 

• 87% of fast food workers get injured on the job at least once per year, and 
• 78% get injured multiple times. 
• 79% of fast food employees report burn injuries, with 73 percent reporting multiple burns. 
• 67% receive cuts. 
• 34% suffer injuries while lifting or carrying heavy items. 
• 12% say they are assaulted on the job. 
• 40% of female fast food workers say they have been sexually harassed.

Currently, these companies make billions of dollars a year, still pay their workers the minimum wage, and have very little to no perks for their jobs. The companies can afford it, and it would reduce the poverty of young adults.

Fast food employers don’t hire teens as much as they should. Many apply, and many get interviews, but few get the job. Employees that are 16 to 19 years old usually make up 30% of the employees that run these businesses. Every year, the number of teens who work is decreasing. Businesses liked to hire teens when the minimum wage was lower, but as the price increases, they believe that they should hire more adults because they need to support themselves and they need to keep their jobs to keep afloat, even though 60% of fast food restaurants are understaffed.

Scarlet Boyer, a PHS student, said, ”I have applied everywhere in this town, walking down the strip in Potosi, to fast food and retail, and I still haven’t got a job yet.”

Currently, the 2023 minimum wage is $12.00, jumping from previous years because of the outcry over the low wages the workers make. In 2015, the minimum wage was $7.65, which shows the increase in pay in these jobs, but the retail and fast food workers still believe this is not enough money to be financially stable, wanting to make $15 an hour now.

Many of these teens are juggling school work at fast food restaurants after school and working full-time shifts. The limit is 40 hours a week, and anything under that, teens can be scheduled to work for 10 hours a week to 39. Many of these teens have very high injuries and no reward tasks on the job they need to do along with them working to get food to the customers, which can affect their physical, mental, and emotional health for a minimum wage paycheck.

Robert Price, a PHS graduate, said, “The harassment and the fast-paced work we do without a drink break for hours on end should allow us to get paid more. The other day, someone didn’t get their way and told me about how they were going to get me fired.”