Extra pay for grocery workers will hurt Latino families struggling in the pandemic
The Fresno City Council is scheduled to vote Thursday on a grocery store mandate that would likely increase the cost of groceries and result in lost jobs for grocery workers. We urge the council to reject this plan and protect hard-working Latino families in Fresno.
Latino families have been disproportionately harmed by the pandemic. We’ve been hit hard with the COVID-19 virus and been harmed by job losses at a higher rate due to the economic fallout from the pandemic.
That’s why Latinos should be concerned about this wrong-headed plan being considered to mandate grocery stores pay their workers an additional $3/hour. This plan will put further financial strain on all families, and particularly Latino families, by increasing grocery costs at a time we simply cannot afford it.
Everyone agrees grocery store workers are frontline heroes. In recognition, grocery stores have provided employees pay bumps, bonuses, free gas and food, and additional time off during the pandemic. But grocery stores cannot afford a mandate like the one being considered by Fresno. A recent study found that a $3/hour mandated wage boost, like the one being considered by the city, would increase a typical grocery store’s labor costs by about 17 percent.
Grocers, who operate on thin margins, will have to do one of a few things: pass the costs along to the customer through higher grocery costs, cut store hours or even close stores. A similar mandate passed in Long Beach, and two stores there are permanently shut down specifically because of the mandate.
If stores pass costs along to customers, this could increase grocery costs on average $240 per year per family. Even in good economic times, an increase of that size is a lot of money. When families have no job and no money coming in, $240/year can be crushing.
According to a December Public Policy Institute of California report, 32% of Latinos indicated needing to receive food from a food bank as a result of COVID-19.
As research has shown, food insecurity — where residents struggle to find access to affordable fresh foods and grocery stores — are much more common in minority neighborhoods. Again, Latino communities would bear the brunt of the unintended impact of these ordinances and could lose their neighborhood grocery stores and access to affordable, healthy food.
Extra pay mandates won’t just impact large, national grocery chains. Many of the successful ethnic, minority owned grocers here in the Central Valley would also be hurt by extra pay mandates.
Grocery store workers are indeed essential, and grocers have taken significant steps to protect workers from the pandemic. But these extra pay mandates won’t make stores or workers any safer. They’ll simply harm low-income, Latino communities that could be left with higher grocery costs, fewer grocery stores in their neighborhoods, and less work if stores are forced to cut hours and jobs.
Our local leaders should avoid harmful mandates that hurt families trying to survive this pandemic.