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<div id="pastingspan1"><span style="">As the debate over minimum wage continues to escalate, some businesses are already exploring how to take human workers out of the equation. </span></div><div id="pastingspan1"><span style=""><br /></span></div><div id="pastingspan1"><span style="">&#8220;I was at the National Restaurant Show yesterday and if you look at the robotic devices that are coming into the restaurant industry -- it&#8217;s cheaper to buy a $35,000 robotic arm than it is to hire an employee who&#8217;s inefficient making $15 an hour bagging French fries -- it&#8217;s nonsense and it&#8217;s very destructive and it&#8217;s inflationary and it&#8217;s going to cause a job loss across this country like you&#8217;re not going to believe,&#8221; said former McDonald&#8217;s USA CEO Ed Rensi during an interview on the FOX Business Network&#8217;s Mornings with Maria.</span></div><div id="pastingspan1"><span style=""><br /></span></div><div id="pastingspan1"><span style="">The math is in front of us. In 2014, 1.3 million people earned $7.25 per hour (current minimum wage) and about 1.7 million earned wages below the federal minimum. That means that these 3 million workers constituted 3.9 percent of all hourly paid staff. </span></div><div id="pastingspan1"><span style=""><br /></span></div><div id="pastingspan1"><span style="">Rensi went on to say, &#8220;It&#8217;s not just going to be in the fast food business. Franchising is the best business model in the United States. It&#8217;s dependent on people that have low job skills that have to grow. Well if you can&#8217;t get people a reasonable wage, you&#8217;re going to get machines to do the work. It&#8217;s just common sense. It&#8217;s going to happen whether you like it or not. And the more you push this it&#8217;s going to happen faster.&#8221;</span></div><div id="pastingspan1"><span style=""><br /></span></div><div id="pastingspan1"><span style="">To read the original Fox Business story, click <a href="http://www.foxbusiness.com/features/2016/05/24/fmr-mcdonalds-usa-ceo-35k-robots-cheaper-than-hiring-at-15-per-hour.html?utm_source=1851franchise.com&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=could-robots-be-cheaper-than-hiring-at-15-an-hour-4766" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here</a>.</span></div><div style="  font-style: normal; normal;  normal;"></div>

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Former McDonald’s USA CEO Ed Rensi says yes

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