Why McDonald’s is supersizing its wages

F OR YEARS McDonald’s has been a prime target of the battles of labour-rights campaigners over miserly pay. The day before its annual general meeting on May 20th Fight for $15, an advocacy group, organised a strike of McDonald’s workers in 15 cities across America. The strike went ahead despite the firm’s vow a week earlier to raise wages. The company said that its 36,500 in-house employees will get a rise of 10% on average, that entry-level wages for new hires would go from $11 to $17 an hour and that average wages for all staff paid by the hour would reach $15 by 2024. It added that it wants to hire 10,000 people for the 650 restaurants it owns outright over the next three months.