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Editor’s Note: This Q&A is part of a series of interviews with political figures in the restaurant industry about the issues facing brands, workers and operators in 2026. The following interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Restaurants, unlike many other businesses, can’t easily reduce labor costs, even though labor can rival or exceed food costs, said Sean Kennedy, chief advocacy officer for the National Restaurant Association. This makes restaurants uniquely susceptible to political changes in the labor market.
Wages rose after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and they haven’t come down since, Kennedy said. Worse still, restaurants can’t avoid labor cost increases because they’re so labor intensive.
“You need a certain number of people to produce a salad, a burger and fries at a restaurant. You need people to serve them. You need people to clean up,” Kennedy said. “We’re always going to have a baseline workforce need that you can't really trim down.”
