I'm sitting here in Wendy's after they've raised prices for the third time this year. My local Wendy's is now $2.50 more expensive for a meal than other Wendy's in the city. I know they had an extremely hard time attracting workers for the longest time. They finally seem to be 70% staffed again which is probably 100% staffed in the owners eyes. I'm thinking about not coming back or coming in less frequently. However if I knew most of that cost increase went to the workers I honestly wouldn't care about the increase. But there is no signage or anything saying are receiving a meaningful raise nor would I trust a franchise owner to be honest. I wish there was some way to know how much the workers made without putting them in the awkward position of having a customer ask them.
I heard about some European country that made taxes public knowledge and one of the consequences was people actually becoming less happy because they thought they were middle class. Being able to actually see what everyone made caused them to realize just how little they were making in comparison to others. On top of being able to learn how certain businesses treat their employees it would also make the inequality in this country more apparent if we all knew what everyone else made.