Fried chicken with a side of savings, please: KFC serves up a new financial wellness program to employees

Building savings can be a daunting task for many workers who live paycheck to paycheck — which is why the KFC Foundation has partnered with non-profit SaverLife to offer all of its U.S. restaurant employees a new personal finance program.

The newly launched MyChange program is designed to help KFC team members build short-term savings and create long-term savings behaviors. The six-month matching program enables employees to save $40 per month and receive an additional $40 match, along with a $20 signup bonus; the goal is to have $500 in savings by the end of the six months.

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“Having an emergency fund has always been important and valuable,” says Emma Horn, managing director of the KFC Foundation, an independent non-profit funded by KFC franchisees. “The uncertainty that came with the pandemic emphasized the need to help equip restaurant employees with resources that would help them build their financial knowledge, create a short-term emergency savings fund, and help franchisees attract and retain top talent.”

Employees working in KFC restaurants typically don’t earn above $12 per hour, which is in line with the rest of the fast food industry, according to figures provided by job search platform Indeed. Emergency savings benefits are a growing trend among employers, yet only 36% of employers currently offer employees non-retirement financial advice, according to the Society for Human Resource Management, and only 32% of companies offer employees a financial incentive to save, according to data from SunTrust Banks.

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Thirty-seven percent of all Americans could not cover an unexpected $400 expense without going into debt, according to a 2019 study from the Federal Reserve. Yet having savings of just $250 is correlated with increased housing security, ability to pay utility bills, and avoiding high-cost borrowing, according to a study by SaverLife.

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“In the past, a lot of these foundations would give a cash grant if someone had some sort of emergency or real financial need,” says Neha Gupta, vice president of marketing at SaverLife. “But now, there's more of a shift going on to do a program where they encourage people to save, and kind of help themselves.”