A recent press release from Chipotle opens with tortured syntax. “Chipotle Increases Wages Resulting in $15 Per Hour Average Wage,” it reads, going on to claim that the company “Provides Path to Six Figure Compensation In ~3 Years” (more on that later). The fast-casual chain had to phrase the announcement this way because it is not raising its starting wage to $15, the amount fast-food workers have demanded for over a decade.

Rather, Chipotle says it will raise wages until the average across all hourly workers comes to $15. This is a meaningless metric, one that allows the income of the hourly workforce who already make more than $15 an hour — such as assistant managers, or “apprentices” in Chipotle parlance — to mask the pay of crew members who make less than $15. The company’s press release says starting wages will increase to $11 — a raise of less than a dollar per hour for the lowest-paid employees, and well below a living wage.

Chipotle says it hopes the raise will attract “talent,” and that it is seeking to hire twenty thousand workers and open two hundred locations this year. The company is not the only employer making noises about having difficulties finding enough workers willing to accept low wages and poor working conditions: McDonald’s and Tyson Foods, for example, have also said that they’ll raise some of their workers’ wages, though these raises are even more circumscribed than those at Chipotle. But it should come as no surprise that the chain is getting worried. Behind the obfuscatory press release is a company that is unravelling.