In-N-Out of Money

Image of In-N-Out Burger Sign taken by George Capalbo on Flickr.

The Republican party has had the discussion on whether or not to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour. In-N-Out Burger has proven to be a supporter of paying their employees more than minimum wage, starting at $11 an hour.

As of 2016, the minimum wage is $8.25 an hour in Nevada. This is $2.75 less than the starting pay of In-N-Out Burgers in Nevada.

California has so far been the only state to raise their minimum wage, raising it $1 per year until it reaches $15 an hour in 2021. Nevada has not raised their minimum wage, but In-N-Out Burger restaurants in Nevada recently raised the starting hourly wage from $10.50 an hour to $11.

“Our hourly wage is higher than minimum wage because we don’t consider the people that work for us employees, we consider them associates,” said Derrick Drake, store manager at In-N-Out Burger in Sparks, Nevada.

When asked, employees that have corporate jobs for In-N-Out Burger said that they were not allowed to discuss it and the information is not published because they are a privately held, family operated business.

“What I can tell you is, we hire associates who seem naturally friendly and able to exemplify our mission statement, which recognizes our customers as our most important asset,” said Phyllis Cudworth, In-N-Out Burgers marketing coordinator.

Image of In-N-Out associate from Wikipedia

Many fast food chains and grocery stores will start out their employees at minimum wage.

“I only make minimum wage but honestly I love my job,” said Bailey Herrling, a 16-year-old employee at Raley’s who started out making minimum wage.

Being paid $11 per hour, the average employee at In-N-Out Burger will make on average $21,000 per year. The average McDonald’s employee, starting at $8.25 an hour in Nevada, will make on average $16,000 per year.

On average, a shift manager at McDonald’s will make about $20,000 per year, compared to the $21,000 and the average employee would make at In-N-Out Burger. A shift manager at In-N-Out Burger will make an average of $40,000 per year, and can even work their way up to earning over $100,000 per year.

According to statista.com an online statistics portal, McDonald’s revenue for 2014 was 27.44 billion, while In-N-Out Burgers was about 575.55 million. Although McDonald’s brings in more for total revenue, they don’t necessarily bring in more money than In-N-Out Burger per store. McDonald’s has 35,000 stores worldwide while In-N-Out Burger has 310 on the west coast of the United States. When dividing the numbers, each McDonald’s store made about $784,000 in 2014, while each In-N-Out Burger Store made almost 2 million. Although McDonald’s brings in more revenue per year, they do not make more money per store.

“I believe our associates 100% deserve what we pay them. If it wasn’t for them, we wouldn’t bring in as much business as we do,” said Derrick Drake.

Since In-N-Out Burger does not have restaurants at as many locations like fast food restaurants such as McDonald’s but still manages to make more on average per year at each individual store, In-N-Out Burger technically brings in more money when the math is done.

McDonald’s has about 1.9 million employees while In-N-Out Burger has about 3,500. Since each individual In-N-Out Burger restaurant makes more money per year than each individual McDonald’s restaurant, the numbers disperse evenly into In-N-Out Burger employees making $11 an hour versus minimum wage.