Starting Wages on 12th and Chestnut Street.

Wage transparency is one of many ways to fight pay inequality.

On 12th and Chestnut St. in the heart of Center City, three companies; a mega-corporation, a fast-food chain, and Pennsylvania’s State-operated booze retailer are advertising job openings and their starting wages. These jobs are accessible by the SEPTA 17 bus from many parts of South Philadelphia, as well as the Broad Street Line via City Hall and Market Street Line via 11th Street Station. There are also Indego Bike docking stations at the corners of both 10th & 12th on Chestnut.

Target on 12th and Chestnut is hiring, positions start at $15 an hour. Jobs at Philadelphia Targets can be found here. In the spirit of wage transparency, according to the Star Tribune’s CEO Pay Watch Target’s CEO Brian Cornell made “$21,621,120 for the year ended Feb. 1, 2020.” The Star Tribune also reports that the median employee pay at Target is “$23,080,” which makes for 821 to 1 CEO to employee pay ratio.

Shake Shack is hiring at their 12th Street location, even hosting an open house on April 11th from 1pm to 4pm. The application for the 12th Street Shake Shack can be found here, and other Shake Shack job openings can be found here. Their starting wage for workers is $13.00 an hour.

According to Mashed, in 2019 CEO Randy Garutti “earned a total compensation of $2.3 million, including $600,233 in salary and $787,506 in stock awards.” The Mashed article also sites that line cooks could make as low as $9.87.

Fine Wine & Good Spirits is operated by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and it’s Liquor Control Board. The Executive Team of the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board appears to be headed solely by white people, however three pictures are missing from their Executive Team’s website.

By their own admission the Wine & Spirits describes itself as “a state agency that includes a $2.5-billion-per-year retail and wholesale business, which requires a significant business infrastructure to support it.” In 2016 it was reported by Penn Live that the previous Executive Director of the PA Liquor Control Board made a salary of $154,000. According to the Pennsylvania Liquor and Control Board’s own 2019-2020 financial statements, the cost of the “Board & secretary (page 74)” are un-audited and swing wildly from year to year by a figure of millions.

Wine and Spirits is hiring employees starting at $12.50 and $13.05 an hour, depending on position. You can apply for those positions here, and type “wine” into the search bar.

Planet Fitness is not necessarily hiring, however, I did go in and ask about their starting wages. An employee told me that he started at $11 an hour, but knows someone who gets paid $10 an hour, hence the importance of wage transparency. Consider having a discussion with your equals at work about their wages to achieve wage transparency at your workplace.