Former McDonald's USA CEO: Minimum wage should be 'determined locally'

Former McDonald’s USA CEO Ed Rensi supports an increased minimum wage for some areas, but said regionality matters in the discussion on Tuesday.

“I think that minimum wage ought to be determined locally where you really have congressmen and senators at the local state governments that really understand the economics of their state,” he told FOX Business’ Dagen McDowell.

Rensi’s comments come as the union behind the “Fight for $15” campaign eyes highway rest stops.

On Wednesday, fast food workers in Connecticut will announce wage theft claims against several companies including three McDonald’s franchisees and declared their plans to unionize, according to Bloomberg.

However, Rensi believes the entire effort “denies the reality of unskilled low skilled workers and what their inputs are versus their outputs.”

“It takes an awful lot of money to train a McDonald's employee-- somewhere north of $400 to $500 -- just the initial month of training and developing and onboarding people that really don't have any skill sets,” he said.

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Even so, Rensi noted that “it makes a lot of sense” to pay workers in places like New York City $15 per hour, but he also believe pushing higher minimum wage in cities “in a rural community where the cost of living is significantly less, makes no sense.”

“We operate a lot of McDonald's restaurants on turnpikes and long highways and it's expensive. The rents are high. There's a lot of waste and fraud in those deals,” he explained.

FBN'S Dagen McDowell contributed to this report.