SDI Productions/Getty Images
- California school districts are worried about workers could leave for $20 jobs in fast food.
- "Persistent staffing issues" are leading to more use of pre-packaged food and longer lines for lunch, a report says.
- The state put the minimum wage for fast-food workers up to $20 an hour on April 1.
School districts in California are worried about food and cafeteria workers leaving for higher-paying jobs at fast-food restaurants after the state boosted the sector's minimum wage to $20 an hour.
School districts "are all very worried about it," Carrie Bogdanovich, president of the California School Nutrition Association, told The Associated Press. "Most are saying they anticipate it will be harder and harder to hire employees."
The new minimum wage for fast-food workers, which went into effect on April 1, is expected to push up wages in other industries, too, so that they can compete for labor.
School districts have chronic problems with recruiting and retaining staff, partly because of low wages, a January report from the California School Nutrition Association and the Chef Ann Foundation details. The report says that "persistent staffing issues" lead to more use of pre-packaged food and longer lines for lunch, with students sometimes resorting to skipping meals.
In 2022, California became the first state to offer free school meals — both breakfast and lunch — to all roughly 6 million public-school pupils.
"In our school cafeterias and food preparation centers, we play a critical role in the educational process by providing nutritious meals for children," the California School Employees Association says on its website. "For many students, the meal they receive at school is the best or only meal they will get each day."
Some school districts are boosting pay to attract more workers.
For example, the Sacramento City Unified School District reached an agreement in November with Service Employees International Union Local 1021 to boost pay to at least $20 an hour from July 1. As well as food-service workers, the new wages cover workers in other low-paying roles like custodians, bus drivers, and instructional aides.
Increasing pay isn't an option for all school districts though. "We just don't have the increase in revenue to be able to provide additional funding for staff," Gretchen Janson, the assistant superintendent of business services at the Lynwood Unified School District in Los Angeles County, told the AP.
She said that the district's food-service workers had a starting salary of $17.70 an hour, which maxed out at $21.51, and that they're not eligible for health benefits because the district's food-service staff only work three hours a day.
"It is difficult when large companies like McDonald's offer a lot more money per hour," an unidentified school food service director in California said in a survey included in the California School Nutrition Association and Chef Ann Foundation report. "We cannot afford to pay at those rates. Thus, it makes getting qualified and reliable staff difficult."
Current vacancies for nutrition services worker roles at the Long Beach Unified School District list their pay as between $17.09 and $21.18 an hour, with staff generally working between two and three hours a week. Another vacancy, for a food-services worker role in Riverside County, is for 36 hours a week at between $18.30 and $19.42 per hour.
But, pay aside, jobs at school districts have some benefits that make them attractive compared to working in fast food, the AP reported. These include health insurance, paid vacations, pensions, and regular shifts that don't include night or weekend work.
According to data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, about 327,000 people worked in food preparation and serving-related occupations at elementary and secondary schools across the US in May 2023, with a mean hourly wage of $16.78.
Other employers will have to boost wages
Only limited-service restaurant chains with at least 60 restaurants nationwide are covered by California's minimum wage. But it will have knock-on impacts for various other employers, including full-service restaurants and retail stores.
"The repercussions will extend beyond just limited-service restaurants to really include any business that's competing for a similar level of labor," Brian Vaccaro, an analyst at Raymond James, previously told Business Insider.
Sal Vitalie, who owns the Garden Club restaurant in South San Francisco, told BI that he would "absolutely" have to raise his wages to compete with fast-food chains for workers.
"Why wash dishes for $15 or $17 if I can go get $20 flipping burgers at McDonald's?" he said.
Are you a worker in California considering moving to a fast-food chain for the $20 wage? Or a business owner concerned your employees may jump ship? Email this reporter at gdean@insider.com.