You Could Make $100K Working at Taco Bell

Dollar signs don't typically come to mind when one is considering a job in fast food, but during a tight labor market, Taco Bell's parent company is trying to change that. Bloomberg reports Yum! Brands will be testing out a six-figure annual salary—$100,000—for general managers at certain Taco Bell restaurants in the Northeast and Midwest; current salaries come in between $50,000 and $80,000, depending on location. This more-tempting-than-a-tostada offer comes as the US finds itself with an almost historically low unemployment rate, meaning it's a job hunter's market and that businesses have to find ways to entice candidates to come work for them.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the median annual salary in 2018 for general and operations managers in fast food at just shy of $80,000. To put a brand name to the numbers, Burger King's average base pay for managers is a little over $45,000. Business Insider notes that while retailers such as Target and Amazon have started raising wages, the fast-food industry typically tries to offer perks to its workers instead of higher pay, making Taco Bell somewhat of an "outlier," per MarketWatch. But it's not the chain that's dangling the most when it comes to a paycheck: The average annual salary for managers at the California-based In-N-Out Burger exceeds $160,000, with starting pay ranging from $12 to $17 an hour. (More Taco Bell stories.)