Surprise: Restaurant Workers Lack Sick Days, Health Insurance

Restaurant Opportunities Centers United has released some data which looks at working conditions for the restaurant industry across eight cities/regions.

The data was found by surveying restaurant workers as well as their employers, and they found a whole bunch of data that shouldn't be terribly surprising to those familiar with the industry. For example, 89.7% of workers don't have employer-provided health insurance, 79.4% don't get paid vacation time, and 87.7% lack sick days.

Somewhat more shocking? According to their data, the median wage for white restaurant workers is $13.25 while the median for none-white workers is $9.54. That's a difference of $3.71, which is a lot! We wish they'd included the difference between the average wages, but that's still a significant difference.

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[Photo: stawarz / Flickr]