The owner of a Chick-fil-A in Sacramento, Calif., is giving his employees a wage.
Starting Monday, people currently employed as “hospitality professionals” at the franchise owned by Eric Mason will see wages jump as much as $5 per hour, from $12.50-$13 to $17-$18. In addition, he is giving supervisors paid time off and all employees paid sick leave.
Mason told a local television station that he was raising wages to attract people looking for long-term opportunities and people with families. Chick-fil-A is known for conservative and traditional values such as closing on Sundays across all locations. Those values have landed the restaurant chain in hot water before: in 2012, then-CEO Dan Cathy said Chick-fil-A supported the “biblical definition of the family unit” and that marriage equality was “inviting God’s judgement,” leading to protests and a national boycott.
California’s minimum wage is currently $11 per hour, but it is rising to $15 per hour by 50 cent increments each year until 2022. According to a living wage calculator created by Dr. Amy K. Glasmeier at MIT, the current living wage for one adult and one child in Sacramento County is $25.90.