A study by the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Illinois revealed that the $1 burger you just purchased at your local fast-food drive-up window actually cost you a little bit more than $1.

Between 2007 and 2011, nearly $7 billion a year was spent to provide public assistance to people who work in the fast-food industry, according to the study. That assistance comes out of everyone’s paychecks via state and federal taxes.

On average, fast-food workers earn $8.69 an hour, and often work fewer than 40 hours a week, qualifying them as part-time workers who don’t get benefits from their employers, such as health care assistance.

While many people conclude fastfood workers are mostly teens picking up extra cash, in fact, 68 percent of them are single or married adults; 26 percent are raising children.

“These statistics paint a picture of workers not being able to get their fair share of the largest, richest economy in the world,” said Sylvia A. Allegretto, lead author of the report by the university economists, which was paid for by Fast Food Forward, a group that supports walkouts by fast-food workers.

Many franchisees say they operate on thin profit margins, and raising wages could put them out of business, but the authors of a report from the National Employment Law Project, a worker advocacy group, contest that.

The nation’s seven largest publicly traded fast-food companies netted a combined $7.4 billion in profits last year, paying out $53 million in salaries to top executives and distributing $7.7 billion to shareholders.

Venessa Wong of Bloomberg Businessweek calculated that if fast-food wages doubled and companies did not reduce other costs, the price of a Big Mac could increase by $1 to offset the increase.

Of course, the National Restaurant Association called the reports misleading, but what can you expect from an organization meant to lobby the government for preferential treatment?

Another report revealed California taxpayers are shelling out $86 million a year to subsidize Wal-Mart operations. That’s because Wal-Mart’s average worker receives $730 in health care and $1,222 in other forms of assistance from the Golden State.

While some might utilize the reports as a way of buttressing their argument that the “War on Poverty” has been a monumental waste of money, others might characterize it as proof that our economic system has failed to ensure all Americans receive a living wage.

Privatizing profits and socializing expenses and the social and economic costs of promoting a philosophy of radical self-reliance has driven the country backward, to a new Gilded Age, where the wealthy are incredibly, almost inconceivably wealthy and the rest of us are just struggling along.

And let’s not forget that while nearly $60 billion a year is spent on traditional social welfare programs, $92 billion is spent on corporate subsidies.

While we do not doubt some of the corporate subsidies are legitimate, many of them should be abolished. And while we will admit that some people who accept government handouts are taking advantage of the system, there are many more out there whose lives, and their children’s lives, depend on assistance.

If we are all willing to pay 25 cents more for that $1 burger, it could mean less public assistance for fast-food workers.

— The Brattleboro (Vt.) Reformer