On October 26, Go Fund Bean, a non-profit organization aimed at aiding and empowering hourly coffee workers (whose leadership recently changed following an investigation into the organization’s finances), announced the return of their Coffee Wage Survey.
The survey, which asks hourly coffee workers to anonymously report their wages, strives to aggregate and analyze hourly wages and to identify themes amongst workers. Like for the first wage survey, the organization plans to release its findings in a report and through a publicly accessible Google spreadsheet. The survey is available to fill out now and will remain open until December 31, 2023.
Why It Matters: Go Fund Bean published the results of its first wage survey back in February 2023, collecting data from over 200 respondents across the United States. The data revealed some interesting trends, like the average wage of a coffee worker (around $14 an hour) and that many workers were given only around 30 hours of work a week, making basic living expenses challenging to meet.
“Very similar to last year’s survey, this year’s questionnaire is expansive. It collects data for both salaried and hourly workers, and will attempt to measure pay disparities related to race, gender, and sexuality,” a press release from Go Fund Bean states. “Questions also explore how workers feel about their jobs and pay–can they meet their bills, is their workload comfortable, do they get benefits?”
The Full Extraction: For the 2023 survey, Go Fund Bean identified specific goals and areas of interest they hope to learn more about:
- “Measure wage changes from 2022 to 2023
- Create a centralized database comparing real wages with estimated living wages
- Compare current wage data with extant data to see if wages have changed
- Data about salaried workers will be compiled to help hourly workers see what is possible outside of the cafe”
What’s More: Go Fund Bean’s wage survey was partially inspired by a slew of public wage spreadsheets that became popular in 2019—workers across a slew of industries, including coffee, could anonymously report their salaries and see how others in their area with comparable work responsibilities and knowledge were getting paid. Perhaps the most illuminating finding from these initial spreadsheets was the vast disparities in wages and benefits despite similar job titles and past work experience.
Go Fund Bean’s wage survey continues in the spirit of transparency and with the belief that empowering baristas with information about how others are paid will lead to more sustainable wages in the future.
“The movement toward greater transparency on the service side of the coffee industry in 2019 was an important one that got somewhat interrupted by COVID,” the press release states. “We want to encourage this conversation again. Without clear data about where the industry stands currently, we can’t move forward together.”
The survey is only open to US-based coffee workers. You can take the survey here.
