RICHMOND, Va. -- Fast food workers around Richmond joined thousands of protesters across the nation demanding a higher wage. Tuesday's organized demonstration was timed to coincide exactly one year to the day of the 2016 Presidential Election.
In between chants, some protesters in Henrico said they work hard, but manage to take home less than $200 a paycheck.
"We are being undercut, we are not getting 40 hours a week, we are getting paid under $8 and hour, you can't survive, you can't live off that," Anthony Holbert said. "If I pay a cell phone bill and put gas in the car and pay for one of my kids’ field trips at school, I have no more money and other things are needed like food, and bills."
Holbert and others on strike across the nation want law makers to raise minimum wage to $15 an hour.
Not everyone believes raising the minimum wage is the answer.
“I just feel like when you go to college, and work hard, you deserve what you work for, people should not just be able to go in, put in a resume at a fast food place and making more money than people with degrees who are struggling to find decent paying jobs," VCU student Inija Miller said.
Others fear raising minimum wage will hurt job growth. Some in the restaurant industry said it would force employers to replace workers with technology, such as touch-screen ordering tablets. Richmond’s minimum wage workers said they would take the Fight for $15 and union rights to the ballot box to show presidential candidates that they are serious about needing a raise.
