The Washington, DC-headquartered National Restaurant Association (NRA), a lobbying group which represents 980,000 restaurant and foodservice outlets in the United States, has responded to what it calls “two misleading reports” released on October 15 by Fast Food Forward. The reports were issued by the University of California, Berkeley, and the National Employment Law Project.
Scott DeFife, the NRA’s executive vice president for policy and Government affairs, commented:
“America’s restaurant industry provides opportunities for millions of Americans, women and men from all backgrounds, to move up the ladder and succeed. In addition to providing more than 13 million jobs, the restaurant industry is one of the best paths to achieving the American dream, with 80% of restaurant owners having started their careers in entry-level positions. In fact, nine out of 10 salaried employees started as hourly workers.
“These misleading efforts use a very narrow lens and selective data to attack the industry for their own purposes and fail to recognize that the majority of lower-wage employees works part-time to supplement a family income. Moreover, 40% of line staff workers in restaurants, the primary focus of the reports, are students.
“The inclusion of the Earned Income Tax Credit shows just how misleading these efforts are, as it is a tax credit specifically designed for working families, not public assistance, and is used to inflate their numbers.”
Meanwhile, on another political front affecting the foodservice sector, the chief executive officer of a large American quick service restaurant chain disputed President Barack H. Obama’s claim that the costs of the controversial ObamaCare federally-sponsored healthcare insurance exchange are not hurting job creation in the USA.
Andy Puzder, the ceo of CKE Restaurants Inc., the parent company of Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s, said that his company and others will choose to hire part-time employees instead of full-time employees, because of increased costs from the health care law. He pointed out that during the six months in 2013 before the Obama administration took action to delay the employer mandate, which requires companies with over 50 full-time employees to provide health coverage to all full-time employees, employers began reducing worker hours to prepare for the impact of the new law.
“It’s very simple: if you increase the cost of something businesses will use less of it. If you decrease the cost, they will use more of it. So if you increase the cost of full-time employment, there will be less fullt-ime employees. If you decrease the cost of part time employment, you’ll have more part-time employment,” Puzder told Megyn Kelly on a recent broadcast of “The Kelly File,” a FOX News Network show.
