In January 2022, the California State Assembly voted in support of a first-of its-kind labor bill, known as the Fast Food Accountability and Standards Recovery Act (FAST Recovery Act).
A survey of gig workers in the spring of 2020 revealed that their jobs provided poor working conditions, even relative to other service-sector workers, who themselves typically receive low pay.
The COVID-19 pandemic has focused attention on the important role that frontline retail, grocery, food service, and delivery workers play in the U.S. economy as well as on the difficult and often precarious working conditions these jobs involve. The Families First Coronavirus Response Act exempted large employers from paid sick-leave requirements, even though prior to the pandemic, more than half of service-sector workers at large employers lacked access to paid sick leave. We draw on novel survey data from the Shift Project, collected from service-sector workers employed at large companies, to examine whether employers voluntarily increased paid sick leave when...
In this brief, we report wage distributions for hourly workers at 66 large service-sector firms, using unique survey data collected from Facebook and Instagram users between March 2021 and November 2021 by the Shift Project. The Company Wage Tracker provides a visual way to compare company’s wage distributions and corporate financials.
We show that tax refunds are a substantial source of income for service sector workers, the equivalent of up to 12% of their annual income for working parents.
This research brief is part of a series designed to advance our understanding of working conditions in the service sector—in particular, schedule instability and unpredictability—in cities and states across the country.
Unstable and unpredictable work schedules continue to be the norm for service sector workers - especially for workers of color, and for women of color in particular.
Research Brief The labor of workers in the retail and food service sector – employed at grocery stores, fast food and casual dining restaurants, in hardware and electronics, in retail and working in warehouses, delivery, and fulfillment – is now, in the COVID-19 pandemic, recognized as “essential.” Yet, these frontline workers have long contended with difficult jobs under precarious conditions. In this report, I take a close look at working conditions in the service sector in New England before the onset of the COVID pandemic. I analyze reports of job quality collected by The Shift Project, which surveyed 2,200 hourly...
