Fast Food workers declare minimum wage "unlivable"

Once again, you are being naive.

You are condemning an entire section of the work force based on the actions, or inactions of a few. Not every employee at McDonalds is some slack jawed pimply faced loser. Some are people who through no fault of their own have landed at McDonalds to at least try to make their own way. Many are older people who are trying to supplement a very meager Social Security , some are people who are trying to work their way through college, etc etc.

One of my biggest pet peeves is when people judge an entire group based on the action of a few.

 

that's all noise. The question begging to be answered then is should salary be based upon the needs of the individual? Why you are working in a particular job is moot. If I have 3 children, should I receive more pay than the child-less person who does the same job? If I work at an entry level job, and need $50k for my family to survive, should I receive that level of pay?

 

If life has dealt you a hand where, after maximizing your opportunities, the only job you're fit for is minimum wage then you likely deserve some help from society. Join a church and you'll never go hungry.

If life has dealt you a hand where, after peeing on your opportunities, the only job you're fit for is minimum wage then you likely deserve your fate and NONE OF MY HELP.

The route to AFDC, SNAP, &c is paved with craptacular decisions. The route to a minimum wage job isn't much more noble.

Where America under Obama has forever screwed itself is in making the looter/moocher route WAYYY too lucrative. There are situations where single women with children would need a $55,000 per year job to replace the entirety of state benefits they can get. That is the worst of all incentivization. Working becomes a fools choice.

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Oh I have an idea, how about if we use (*)(*)(*)(*)ing common sense instead of your made up over the top exaggerations. Of course a McDonalds employee shouldn't be making $50K a year. I have not seen one person suggest that is the case.

But current min wage is $7.25 an hour . Now if you know anything about the fast food industry you know that they don't work employees full time. They use swing shifts and such and most people are lucky to get 35 hours a week. But for the sake of simplicity, let's use the standard 2080 hour work year. That''s $15080 a year at MOST. Even if we accept that most McDonalds employees garner raises and aren't making minimum wage we know that most of these jobs hand out raises a quarter at a time, so figure after 4 raises an employee would theoretically be making $17160 a year. But in reality we know they are not working 2080 hours a year. In fact if you figure 35 hours a week X 52 weeks you get 1820 hours a year, and that is assuming that no time is missed for any reason. So then your person that is making $1 an hour more than minimum wage is realistically down to $15,015 a year, which qualifies them for food stamps.

Oh and another thing that cracks me up is this "let them work a second job" crap . Once again , I have a friend who owns a McDonalds , I know how it works, they schedule people on irregular shifts which make it nearly impossible to work a second job. I mean some of his employees will work 8-2 one day then 2-10 the next and so on and so forth and it changes from week to week, and guess what happens if you can't make the schedule work? You think my friend cares if someone has a second job and can't work X hours?

He's my friend, but I think he's a dick for the way he treats his employees and I've told him so. Being conservative does NOT mean being an (*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*) to those less fortunate than yourself.

 

Show me an adult who works for minimum wage, and Ill show you somebody that made poor life choices.

Its that simple.

 

I'm being brutally realistic, conhog. If you expect to get ahead in life flipping burgers, guess again.

I'm not condemning anyone, much less an entire section of the work force. If you want to flip burgers for a living or to supplement your income, more power to ya. I've got more respect for the people who work in McDonalds than the unemployed slackers who won't take that work because they think it is beneath their dignity.

I've never had a problem with that, and I never said every employee at McDonalds is some slack jawed pimply faced loser, did I?

One of my pet peeves is when people put words in other people's mouths.

My point still stands.
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Once again, for those of you incapable of understanding the concept of business... McDonalds OBLIGATION is to maximize profits for its owners. That is, its millions of shareholders.

Such short sightedness in the post above.

So lets assume McDonalds says "Ok, we are going to spend 1.4 billion dollars on raises to our employees. Their stock value would tank, who would want to own stock in a company that has no interest in being profitable to make a return on the investors money?

What would happen if McDonalds stock tanked.... yeah, bye bye McDonalds and the workers get nothing.

Employees are not shareholders. No matter how badly the left thinks they deserve to be. They aren't.

This entire argument that profits should be spread among the employees is not the dynamic most US businesses were founded upon. Handing ownership of businesses from the shareholders, to the employees, is simply downright stupid.

Come up with a different absurd suggestion, because this one sucks and is completely illogical.

 

I agree, a healthy small and medium business sector is vital to this, unfortunately large corporations are simply chewing them up over and over. Their days are gone I fear.

The problem is that until large industry is pulled into line, many of them broken up, there are few other options. What can you do, when the working and middle class jobs have gone and the few that remain have very poor wages...

Over regulation of what... the financial industry, I would say is in dire need of it. Plus, environmental controls, sorry I agree with them also. Stop listening to the Koch bros, they are lying when they use environmental regulations as an excuse.

Here is your problem. You task one political movement with the task to fix it, when both caused it, equally the right. But apparently only they have the vision to fix it. You are wrong. There needs to be more cooperation between parties to fix this, not less.

 

LOL , do you REALLY think that McDonalds corp gets the majority of the profits from most McDonalds stores.

They do not. In fact they get a very slim margin, 5% on average. They make up for that with the sheer number of stores they have and the sheer volume of sales. So guess what that means. The guy who owns the McDonalds in your town is in fact making 45% profit on average. That is a fact.

Oh and the chances of a McDonalds closing are slim to none, McDonalds is ruthless about assessing their sites before building, so its not like a franchisee is really even risking his money when he invests.

Now, I don't begrudge my friend making his money, but I do begrudge him being able to have employees who he pays so little that MY taxes must go to welfare to help support them. He could EASILY add 10-20% to his wages and ease MY tax burden accordingly.

 

Bollocks. Utter bollocks. In todays financial situation, sensible people have fallen through the cracks and lost everything. Especially in your country, where HC is tied to your job and illness is not.

 

So businesses should pay you twice what your worth just to be nice??? LMFAO!!!

 

I hope these companies say:
"sure, we'll raise your pay... now put your names in this hat because some of you will have to be laid off because of it".

See how many of them run back to work instead.

 

Even if that is true it is simple minded.

Do you understand that with our system of welfare if the employee isn't earning enough they will qualify for welfare, and that welfare is paid by MY taxes (I some how believe you probably do NOT pay taxes) REGARDLESS of why they are earning minimum wage.

We have a few choices here

1. Get rid of welfare and just tell people who fail tough (*)(*)(*)(*), whether their fault or not

2. Continue subsidizing minimum wages which have not even attempted to keep up with inflation over the last 20 years

3. Adjust the minimum wage so that workers who work full time do not qualify for welfare.

Take your pick. I know I pick option 3.

 

Evidently, you've never heard of our Medicaid program. Look it up.

 

Isn't a $9 turkey or beef dinner at a restaurant..... basically the same quality as fast food ?!

I wish I could get away spending $9 on food..
good food.

 

I wonder how many death threats she has received for murdering Trayvon Martin.

 

Not too mention , I wonder if some of these people have ate at McDonalds lately. Guess their SNAP benefits aren't accepted there LOL

I took my 8 year old to McDonalds the other day as a treat and I got a double quarter pounder meal and she had a happy meal then we had to ice creams after and it cost me just short of $20. For McDonalds!!!!

 

Ok fine. But any service industry is like that because you need people to be there when the customers are. You can't very well have people work a regular shift if the business is irregular -- which is pretty much any service industry. You might have lots of people on weekends and evenings and almost no one at 2pm on Thursday. Which means you need the flexability to be able to schedule that way to cover the busy times and not the slow times, and you need to cover the vacations and holidays and family events of other employees. If you can't work on Friday night because you're going to a wedding, someone needs to take that shift to keep the store staffed, and if you're locked into "this person works 8-5 everyday" you can't do that. You also can't do much with similar restrictions if you have a special event (say a football game) that you know will bring in a crowd.

But whatever, never let Facts get in the way of a good mad.

 

Why should anyone sacrifice profit over people who CHOSE to work there ?

And what is unethical about that ?

 

The problem is with Wall Street and its expectations, I said ths before. Companies should not expect perpetual growth, it is not sustainable, this is the actual problem.

You seem to accept your slavery to corporations well, well done you. It´s not something that I will ever accept. The Right accuse the Left of this slavery to the State, meanwhile all they´ve done is to swap their master.

 

Ridiculous.

Why "average" costs ?

Why not "low end" costs ?

It's flipping burgers for F's sake.

 

HUH? I didn't even state that these business didn't have a legitimate need to schedule the way they do. You pointed out several reasons why they do. I merely pointed out that being available for such a flexible schedule makes the employee unavailable to get a second job, which makes others claims that they should get a second job laughable.

And being available to work such odd schedules earns a person MORE money in most other vocations. Why should the service industry be an different?

Look, I'm reading all these posts talking about bringing back manufacturing jobs and such, but that isn't going to happen. US workers are going to have to more and more rely on the service industry, and why shouldn't those in the service industry be paid accordingly

 

The irony....

 

Who cares what it is? Do you understand that if a person is making even $8.25 per hour and working 35 hours a week, that the current system allows them to collect welfare?

Do you understand that tax monies pay for said welfare , which if the guy who is making a 45% return on his investment paid his employees a little more those people would NOT qualify for welfare?

 

You're arguing with the wrong guy.
I think minimum wage should increase... and should have long ago.

It doesn't affect me, so I don't dwell on it.

But my point was why would you base it on the price of an "average" home... "average" car, etc.
And not "average" trailer and a bus ticket, or beater ?

Raise it.... reasonably.

And that doesn't mean double it like the protestors are demanding.