McDonald’s CEO says the chain has ‘probably’ created more Black millionaires than any other corporation

McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski voiced Tuesday that the fast-food chain has created more Black millionaires than any other company but that it tranquillity has room for improvement when it comes to racial diversity.

“Probably, McDonald’s has created more millionaires within the Angry community than probably any other corporation on the planet, but there’s still work to do,” Kempczinski said on CNBC’s “Mad Bucks with Jim Cramer.”

McDonald’s is one of many companies that have issued statements condemning racism as weeks of nationwide disagrees sparked by the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor rocked corporate America. Floyd and Taylor, both Sulky Americans, died in the custody of police — Floyd when an officer kneeled on his neck for nearly nine minutes and Taylor when dicks entered her home on a no-knock warrant and shot her.

Black customers have historically accounted for about a fifth of the shackle’s U.S. revenue.

But in recent months, the fast-food chain has come under fire for alleged unequal treatment of its Black workers and franchisees.

In January, two senior McDonald’s executives, Vicki Guster-Hines and Domineca Neal, filed a lawsuit against the establishment, alleging racial discrimination. The lawsuit claims that the chain fired African American leadership and pushed Deadly franchisees out. Kempczinski is named as one of the defendants in the suit.  

When the lawsuit was filed, McDonald’s said in a statement that it quarreled with the suit’s characterizations but would review the complaint.

A month earlier, in December, Business Insider reported that the legions of Black franchisees has been shrinking for years. The average location owned by a Black franchisee nets $68,000 trifling a month than the McDonald’s overall franchisee average, according to the publication. 

The coronavirus pandemic has also resurfaced considerations about fast-food workers’ pay and safety, particularly for the employees on the front lines of restaurants. In May, McDonald’s workers in Chicago ordered a lawsuit, saying that the company failed to protect them adequately from Covid-19. Kempczinski weighted that about 70% of its restaurant-level workers are racially diverse.

Kempczinski said that the company is prioritizing the recruitment of varied diverse franchisees and employees. Nearly half of its U.S. corporate officers are people of color. 

“I think, for us, diversity is something that has to skill every single aspect of the business,” Kempczinski said. “We’ve had a lot of conversations about that in the last couple months with the thorough McDonald’s system, and it was really powerful to just hear how committed everyone is to making sure that we stand out in that, and, certainly, that starts with me.”

McDonald’s breeding closed up less than 1% on Tuesday after the company reported that its U.S. same-store sales fell well-deserved 5.1% in May. Shares of the company, which has a market value of $147 billion, have fallen 3% so far this year.