Nearly one-quarter of McDonald's workers make less than $10 an hour, according to a new survey

• An estimated 23% of McDonald's workers make under $10 an hour, a new study found.
• This is a higher percentage of workers than at competing fast-food chains.

McDonald's workers have some of the lowest wages in the fast-food industry, according to new data released by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).

The Wage Tracker project from EPI found that 23% of McDonald's workers make less than $10 per hour, based on survey results collected in March and November 2021. The left-leaning, pro-union think tank says that it surveyed over 20,000 workers at 66 chains across the US, with an average of 317 respondents per chain.

A wage of $10 per hour works out to a salary of $20,000 a year for someone working typical 40-hour workweeks.

The number of workers making under $10 an hour was higher at McDonald's than at any of its competitors studied by EPI. In comparison, 14% of Taco Bell workers, 17% of Burger King workers, and 11% of Chick-fil-A workers make less than $10. McDonald's also employs more workers than these competitors, with nearly 700,000 US workers as of 2019.

McDonald's told Insider in a statement that it disputes the results. It says the survey "relies on a small sample size and dated information." McDonald's also increased wages by an average of 10% in May 2021 with plans to increase the average hourly wage to $15 by 2024, the chain said. These changes only applied to about 5% of US McDonald's workers. McDonald's says many franchisees, who employ the rest of the chain's workers, have raised wages over the last year and added PTO, education, and tuituon benefits.

"We will continue to focus on what's most important to our people – pay and benefits, training and growth opportunities, and recognition and appreciation – to attract and retain talent in this competitive hiring environment," McDonald's told Insider in a statement.

Fast-food workers have had more leverage in the past year as businesses struggled to retain and hire employees, and many workers saw this as a chance to demand higher wages and better benefits. Over the last year, restaurants couldn't keep locations staffed at pre-pandemic levels, so they have to compete for workers with sign-on bonuses and other perks. The labor shortage in many sectors of the economy is a boon to some dissatisfied retail workers who are suddenly able to shop around for new jobs.

Workers received some concessions, like Chipotle's move to raise the average wage to $15 per hour, an increase of $2, and Starbucks' commitment to raising its average wage to $17 an hour by summer 2022 under threat of unionization. But not all workers have benefitted from these raises. The federal minimum wage was last increased in 2009, to its current level of $7.25. Some states have higher minimums, but in 2019, 392,000 workers earned the federal minimum wage, and 1.2 million earned less, according to a Bureau of Labor Statistics report, Juliana Kaplan reported for Insider.

These wages on the lower end of fast-food workers also result in less purchasing power thanks to rapid inflation, which hit a 41-year high in March.

Do you have a story to share about a retail or restaurant chain? Email this reporter at mmeisenzahl@businessinsider.com.