Fast-food workers across US push for "surviving" wage

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Fast-food workers across the United States launched day-long strikes on Thursday to push for what they called a "surviving" wage.

The strikes affected chains such as McDonald's and Dunkin' Donuts and played out across a wide swathe of American cities, from New York and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Charleston, South Carolina.

Organisers said strike lines were planned in 100 cities coast-to-coast.

The workers seek to be paid $15 an hour whereas fast-food jobs typically are paid the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.

"I'm struggling and I'm still dependent on government assistance to help take care of me and my family," said Shementia Butler, 33, who works at McDonald's in Washington and has two children.

"I'm not making enough," she added.

"Everyone must fight this injustice. We work hard, but they don't pay us enough to survive," added Yaya Badji, a 29-year-old from Senegal who earns around $800 a month at Au Bon Pain in Washington. Badji, who arrived in the US a year ago, added he was "really surprised" to find wages so low.

On Wednesday Obama reiterated his call to hike the minimum wage, asserting that "it's well past time" to raise a wage that in inflation-adjusted terms lags the level where it stood in the 1940s.

"If you work hard, you should make a decent living," Obama said "If you work hard, you should be able to support a family."