Detroit burger joint shows it’s possible to pay workers $15 an hour and still make money

originally posted by: Aazadan


I'm in school for 18 hours a week. Working for another 20 per week. Doing homework for 30, sleeping for 70. And the other 30 I am reading and doing my own work. .

if you slept 50 hours a week and/or did less of your own work, you could be working full time on a cnc right now
just saying

originally posted by: Aazadan

originally posted by: amazing
I started at fast food. Worked faster and harder than anyone and did anything that they asked. Then I started studying a reading the training manuals...I would take them home and read them after work! Who does that?

I'm in school for 18 hours a week. Working for another 20 per week. Doing homework for 30, sleeping for 70. And the other 30 I am reading and doing my own work. Right now I am building a 3d product turntable for a web application, it's not for a wage but I can use it one day as an example of a completed project when trying to demonstrate experience to an employer.

To your question of who does that? Pretty much everyone I've ever met in work or school. We all take stuff home and work on it. That's pretty much expected, how else will you ever build and maintain your skills? Employers certainly aren't going to pay you for that when you can do it on your own time.

I own my own business but I'm in the middle of reading two sales books, some law of attraction stuff, self improvement books and I train under 3 different martial artists. Because who knows what will happen next?? It could be another step up or a step back but I'll keep moving no matter what! and learning!

I would suggest adding some behavioral psychology to the mix. Sales techniques are nothing more than applied psychology and it's much more effective to just go right to the source and know why something does or doesn't work rather than having a list of what to do.

Funny you mention that. I was just thinking about psychology and how it effects Sales and your personal relations and then again how psychology effects your marketing. I will be looking into it!

I do think you're wrong though in that most people do this. We do, but that last job I was at, I was the only one reading business books on my spare time, trying to formulate a business plan and researching that and actually training in something meaningful. That's out of hundreds of people. Oh, i'm sure there were one or two flying under the radar but I would just get blank looks when I said I was planning to do this or that. They would shake their heads and say good luck. They're all still there. Doing nothing...stuck on that wrung or against that wall. Some comfortable...they're at the level where they're making enough money and have some job security but many are very unhappy.

The job before that.. I was the only one volunteering and running for elections and taking advantage of the free college classes. Most people don't do this. You're different. You're going to succeed.

originally posted by: Grovit
if you slept 50 hours a week and/or did less of your own work, you could be working full time on a cnc right now
just saying

I'm physically unable to sleep for less. I have to take a medication, and one of the side effects is sedation. If I try to push things and sleep for less time I will just pass out later in the day. I have fallen asleep while standing in line at a grocery store, fallen asleep driving (fortunately I pulled over before I was completely out), and just recently had to leave a class and passed out in my car sleeping in -10 degree weather. If I only had to sleep for 50 hours a week it would be amazing, but I physically can't do that.

As far as doing less of my own work goes, that would mean giving up on what I want to do as a career. Things worth doing take work and that doesn't bother me. What does bother me is that the job market in the US right now is poor. There is a lack of available jobs, a lack of advancement, a lack of careers, and wages have been continually going down. We're talking in this thread about how amazing $15/hour is for a job that should be minimum wage but had our wages not stagnated in the first place that same job would be paying $25/hour, and this man paying what he does by offering a premium service would be closer to $38/hour territory.

originally posted by: Aazadan
What does bother me is that the job market in the US right now is poor. There is a lack of available jobs, a lack of advancement, a lack of careers, and wages have been continually going down. We're talking in this thread about how amazing $15/hour is for a job that should be minimum wage but had our wages not stagnated in the first place that same job would be paying $25/hour, and this man paying what he does by offering a premium service would be closer to $38/hour territory.

this is where we dont agree.
i think certain jobs are in bad supply right now but lots of jobs are booming.
manufacturing and engineering jobs are all over the place.

$15 an hour is amazing for a job that should be minimum wage.
there is no way a burger flipping job is ever going to be $25 an hour.

i think you are way off base there.

this is not a knock but i think you need more real world experience to see how it actually works versus wherever you are getting your stats and facts from.
it just does not match.
im telling you from experience.
another poster told you the same thing as me. from actual experience.

the jobs are there.
when you finish school if what you want to do does not pan out for some reason, there will be cnc, cmm type jobs for you to snatch up.
trust me

originally posted by: Grovit
$15 an hour is amazing for a job that should be minimum wage.
there is no way a burger flipping job is ever going to be $25 an hour.

I'll try again to explain it. Burger flipping is an entry level low skill job, you're saying (and most would agree) that it should be on the lower end of the wage scale. Minimum wage sounds good.

So let me ask you this. Why is the minimum wage $7.45/hr? Why not $9? Why not $5? If minimum wage were $5/hr would you still feel that burger flipping should be at the minimum which would now be $5? This is where the argument comes from, it's not that burger flipping should pay more, it's that the minimum wage is too low. There's all kinds of metrics here and I'll refrain from repeating them but the minimum wage needs to probably quintuple phased in gradually over 20 years (this is accounting for inflation and future increases over that timespan too), this would be about an 8.4% increase per year. It has not kept up with the increases in the costs of goods, which means that it has declined in purchasing power. Furthermore, all wages are based on the minimum if the minimum hasn't kept up then it stands to reason (and can easily be shown) that other wages have also not kept up.

originally posted by: Aazadan

So let me ask you this. Why is the minimum wage $7.45/hr? Why not $9? Why not $5? If minimum wage were $5/hr would you still feel that burger flipping should be at the minimum which would now be $5? .

i dont know why it is not $9. dont know why it is not $5

minimum wage is the lowest wage someone can expect to be paid for a no skill required job that anyone can do.
so, if minimum wage was $5 then yes, flipping burgers fits that bill.

i think if you are in a no skill job like that you should never expect to make more than minimum. if you do, thats great but it would not be wise to expect it.

if it gets hiked to 9 then yeah, expect to make 9.
if minimum wage is 47 then expect to make 47

its a no skill job and should always pay minimum wage.
of course raises for time in the job and merit. i mean starting out. the new guy on the first day.
minimum wage whatever that happens to be

Jobs such as these have been around for decades, and at earlier times the wages were actually enough to live on. Or at the very least the money these people earned had more purchasing power than it does today. The minimum wage has gone up, but not relative to everything else. To have that same purchasing power the minimum wage should probably be a lot higher than it is today. But back then you didn't have companies sending so many jobs overseas, and you had more companies that truly cared about their workers. It was not seen as a bad move to raise the wages and make less profit, as long as a large enough profit was being turned. Today it does not matter what the profit is, as wages will not waver. No "one thing" is the problem in my opinion. There is so much more money today tied up in the financial sector, money that was much more dispersed at earlier times, at least in a certain sense. People talk about getting paid for the work done, and how unskilled workers shouldn't be paid so much, but do these people say anything about some of the wealthy who are unskilled as well? Especially those who already had money to start with, who need not do anything but dole out that money to make more money. The same people who put so much faith in "skill" don't have a problem with people making more money than their skill suggests they should be making.

And many of those who have lots of money and who make money through financial wrangling are not actually conferring any overall benefit to society. They don't create jobs or create wealth or products. Unskilled laborers are actually providing a necessary service. I think that all cases would be different however. For instance, if you have a company that is turning a huge profit every year, yet who pays their employees as little as they can get away with, and who offers no benefits to these employees, I see a problem with that. They are making all of this money off of the work of those same employees, and in that sense are taking advantage of them. Let me explain. Nobody would argue that the kids overseas who work for a little of nothing for huge corporations are not being taken advantage of. They are. So what is this magic number when all of the sudden it is not taking advantage of someone, but paying them what they're "worth?" Minimum wage? And who determines this and how is it determined? It could not be based on the skill of the worker, considering it is a flat, set number across the board, no matter the industry. So to say that these workers are paid based on their skill is incorrect. Some jobs take more skill than others. Is it the amount of training that one has had? Well there are a variety of minimum wage jobs that are actually pretty difficult, and that require more than a days worth of training. These are lumped together with "burger flipper." Is it having a degree? My uncle used to talk about this all the time, as he hires people for his business. The person more fit for the job would sometimes be the person without the degree, and he would constantly rail on just how dumb some "educated" people could be, and how unqualified, even though they were supposedly educated on the subject. For all unskilled jobs, and some skilled jobs, experience is worth a lot more.

And there are skilled laborers out there who are making small amounts of money as well. America does NOT pay workers based on how skilled they are, or how hard their jobs are, or how hard they work or whether they give it their all everyday. This is a myth in my opinion, yet it is perpetuated. I do not think that struggling businesses should be required to pay more than minimum wage, if doing so would come close to sinking that business. What should be done is this: a system needs to be devised that stipulates that minimum pay for a worker in that company is based on the profits that company earns. The ridiculous amounts of money that CEO's and others make is something that needs to change, because they are most definitely NOT earning based on their skill, experience, or hard work. I can guarantee you that there are people making minimum wage who are working a lot harder. There are probably even people with more experience who are making far less. So the system doesn't work like some think it does.

So anyway, I do not believe you can place a "flat rate" on jobs like minimum wage does, and that earnings should be based on the overall benefit that workers confers to the company, as well as the amount of money that company makes in profits. I don't know how such a system could be implemented, but it would be a much fairer system, and could be made to be a more accurate representation of the work a worker does.

originally posted by: Grovit
i dont know why it is not $9. dont know why it is not $5

There's a long and complicated explanation behind this but it's a mixture of a few factors:
1. The rest of the world recovered from WW2 and started building their own economies which took work away from the US.
2. Those at the top with the most influence want a lower wage, as it means they pocket more money.
3. CPI reforms to "remove" runaway inflation.

You can pick a bunch of points to reference what the wage "should" be. 2003, 1992, 1982, 1967, 1955, these are all years where the minimum wage was increased to bring it back in line to remove the effect of inflation. Except that it never did.

if minimum wage was $5 then yes, flipping burgers fits that bill.

So lets say that minimum wage is $5/hour but food, shelter, and medical coverage requires $10/hour. Would you agree that the business should then have to pay $10/hour? If they don't pay it, the rest of us will pay it in taxes. The fair thing to do would be to make the business pay their wages rather than the taxpayer, correct?

This is the situation we have now. The minimum wage doesn't cover lifes necessities but these jobs pay at or near the minimum. As a result we have government programs like HEAP, SNAP, WIC, HUD, and a few others that are trying to make up the difference. Of course, the money for this has to come from somewhere and most of that money comes from the people in the 40th-80th income percentiles. Wouldn't it be better for all involved if the employer was instead paying a proper wage so that the taxpayer doesn't have to? You then get into the issue of how to enforce that, and the only way in our existing legal framework is by increasing the minimum wage.

originally posted by: JiggyPotamus
What should be done is this: a system needs to be devised that stipulates that minimum pay for a worker in that company is based on the profits that company earns. The ridiculous amounts of money that CEO's and others make is something that needs to change, because they are most definitely NOT earning based on their skill, experience, or hard work.

It's actually fairly easy to legislate this, assuming you could get it through congress and that's by instituting wage gaps. Plato said it should never be more than a 4:1 gap between the highest and lowest paid. JP Morgan said it should never be more than 20:1 and in Japan their culture tries to keep it to no more than 30:1 (though this has been rising lately as economic inequality grows due to a huge number of part time jobs). I think a fair compromise position is that of JP Morgan. 20:1 means that for every $1 you pay your lowest paid employee, you get $20. If the janitor is making minimum wage, the owner is limited to $149/hour. That means if you're employing people at the minimum, you're capped at $309,920/year. If the employer wants to make more money, they then need to spread the wealth a bit.

originally posted by: JiggyPotamus
, but do these people say anything about some of the wealthy who are unskilled as well? Especially those who already had money to start with, who need not do anything but dole out that money to make more money.
whats wrong with investing your money into ventures that will give you more money? thats kind of the point isnt it?


The same people who put so much faith in "skill" don't have a problem with people making more money than their skill suggests they should be making.
well i certainly have a problem making more than the normal pay for my level of skill. i dont think anyone would so i dont really understand why you even mention that

And many of those who have lots of money and who make money through financial wrangling are not actually conferring any overall benefit to society. They don't create jobs or create wealth or products. Unskilled laborers are actually providing a necessary service.
i agree. unskilled workers are providing a necessary service. and yeah, john q money bags who owns the company created those jobs for them to provide that service.

I think that all cases would be different however. For instance, if you have a company that is turning a huge profit every year, yet who pays their employees as little as they can get away with, and who offers no benefits to these employees, I see a problem with that.
i dont. i mean i see it as uncool. but, they are in business to make money for themselves. not to make money for the people who work for them....there is a minimum wage and that is as little as they are required to pay. there are companies that pay more than that for the same work others pay the minimum...good for them. thats great. still, theyre in business to make money for themselves. you or i really have no right to tell them how much they should be paying their employees and how much of a salary they can take.


They are making all of this money off of the work of those same employees, and in that sense are taking advantage of them.
i dont agree. he provided a position and someone took it. they are not forced to be there. if they feel taken advantage of then they can hit the road. there will be someone else to fill the spot


It could not be based on the skill of the worker, considering it is a flat, set number across the board, no matter the industry. So to say that these workers are paid based on their skill is incorrect.
sure its correct. it is a minimum as in they cant pay less. they can pay more though and companies do. some fast food spots stat at minimum. my brothers worked at taco bell like 6 years ago. they started out at 8.25. thats abive minimum, thats what the company thought the skill set to work there was worth


Some jobs take more skill than others. Is it the amount of training that one has had? Well there are a variety of minimum wage jobs that are actually pretty difficult, and that require more than a days worth of training
what jobs are you talking about? a cashier position at target. sure, it might take a week to get the hang of the codes and such but then what demands so much skill? what about it. you scan things. you bag things. you type things? not really demanding


. For all unskilled jobs, and some skilled jobs, experience is worth a lot more.
i 100% agree. which is why people need to get out there and get the experience. start at the bottom, at minimum wage or close. have a work ethic. get some experience and get the raises. maybe work a year for that company and then take your years experience to another company and make more...what experience to you get at mcdonalds that will allow you to get a better position somewhere else? you dont.
now what about a factory. factories often have people float around as you are there longer. a year in a factory and you can go from zero experience to experience on a tow moter. rf scanners. maybe shipping and receiving. quality control. manual machines. you can get a lot of experience in a year

And there are skilled laborers out there who are making small amounts of money as well. America does NOT pay workers based on how skilled they are, or how hard their jobs are, or how hard they work or whether they give it their all everyday. This is a myth in my opinion, yet it is perpetuated.
its reality in my opinion. the places i have worked pay based off of skill and experience. so yeah


I do not think that struggling businesses should be required to pay more than minimum wage, if doing so would come close to sinking that business. What should be done is this: a system needs to be devised that stipulates that minimum pay for a worker in that company is based on the profits that company earns.
it is ridiculous to make that mandatory. i agree a lot of places should pay more to their employees but should not be forced to. no matter the profit they are bringing in. people start companies with their hard work, effort, and money. who the hell are you to tell them they have to pay their people based on their profits? i dont agree with that at all.



The ridiculous amounts of money that CEO's and others make is something that needs to change, because they are most definitely NOT earning based on their skill, experience, or hard work.
you really dont know that though. they did something to get to the top of the ladder. they often have years of business school behind them. they have skills. you just dont agree with what they make. when you own the company or run the company, i guess thats a perk. you make a ridiculous amount. i would like to think if i was theceo of my own machine shop i would pay above the standard as long as the skills were there because i know how it is working in a shop. i would not be receptive to someone telling me i had to pay them more based on my profits though.
its my business. not the employees


So anyway, I do not believe you can place a "flat rate" on jobs like minimum wage does, and that earnings should be based on the overall benefit that workers confers to the company, as well as the amount of money that company makes in profits. I don't know how such a system could be implemented, but it would be a much fairer system, and could be made to be a more accurate representation of the work a worker does.

i dont agree with the last paragraph.
people start their companies to make money for themselves. your proposed pay scale is ridiculous in my opinion.
its very easy to say that when you are not the owner of the company. its very easy to say you would do this or that but you dont really know if you would till you are in that spot.

if you were the owner of a company you might be singing a different tune about it.


i just dont agree with what you are saying. i feel like you might have a different attitude about it if you actually did own a big ass company and someone was trying to force you to pay x amount.
maybe you wouldnt and that would make you super awesome.

i just dont agree.
you start a business with your money and your time, you call the shots.
thats how it workd

a reply to: tothetenthpower

In n out has been been doing this forever in SoCal...

a reply to: Grovit

You're right about people quitting jobs. I worked at a factory (Only 8 an hour, kinda hard work, mostly mexicans, gotta work a year or more to be hired permanent and that is if you're lucky, some guys been there 3 years and make 9.50-10 and still temps) and people would always quit, some didn't even make it to lunch. I was fired because i started college and couldn't show up on fridays due to school, but i knew the job was # and didn't care.

Worked at a feed mill stacking bags (hard work if you've never done it, stack 50-60ish tons of feed in 8 hours per person. Lost 30lbs in the first 3 months lol) and the same thing would happen all the time. I got fired from their because my boss was an A-hole, he wrecked the main mixing machine because he was sleeping on the job and didn't turn it off when the alarms were going off. My department was down all night.

Here's where this story gets good, and this is no # the truth. I asked if i could go on lunch, after i cleaned up everything and i was basically sweeping clean floors to look busy. He said no (i was the only employee not allowed a lunch, Oklahoma has weird ass labor laws and i fell into one of the worst ones), I asked him why, his words were "Because daddy #ing says so" and he flicked a cigarette at me and walked off. Well i was like "F it" and i went to lunch anyways. Fired three days later for it. He didnt get in any trouble for messing a machine up (huge machine, 2 stories tall god knows how expensive), sleeping on the job, causing almost an entire shifts production to be lost. I got fired for taking a clandestine lunch break during all of this nonsense. He had only worked there a few months longer than me, just a big kiss ass.

Wages are determined by supply and demand. A minimum wage job is not a career. If you've been in a minimum wage job for any serious length of time or trying to raise a family / live on that job you've made some seriously bad moves in your life.

Reading this thread shows that there are way too many people who don't even have a rudimentary understanding of basic economics.

originally posted by: Bundy

You're right about people quitting jobs. I worked at a factory (Only 8 an hour, kinda hard work, mostly mexicans, gotta work a year or more to be hired permanent and that is if you're lucky, some guys been there 3 years and make 9.50-10 and still temps) and people would always quit, some didn't even make it to lunch.

Worked at a feed mill stacking bags (hard work if you've never done it, stack 50-60ish tons of feed in 8 hours per person. Lost 30lbs in the first 3 months .

yeah man. it happens all the time. people dont want to do the work.
ive seen so many people quit on their first day...there are a lot of people that work at the foundry that have been there years. then when new guys come in, not too many of them make it to the year mark.

its hard #.
one of the jobs we call the pits. pays 16 an hour. all you do is shovel sand...youre in trenches shoveling sand. 8-10-12 hours a day.
people dont stick around for that one.
we use sand for our molds and when they shake out they break apart and the sand has to be reclaimed.

that is a hard ass job. there is no brain work to be done. no skills needed.
you just have to be willing to bust your ass shoveling all day.
a few guys there have been doing it for years. after 3 years i say the one dude was probably making almost 19 bucks an hour.

now jobs like that are available but people do not want anything to do with it.
i wouldnt want that job but you bet your ass if i needed work and i was gonna make that much shoveling, id be all over it.
i would jam and be the best ad every time i see an open position bid on it to try and get out of the pits.

still though. as tough as it is out there. people have families and responsibilities, if you are able bodied, how can a person turn it down?

of course the job sucks but the pay is killer.

thats what i dont get.
they will take the job and quit a day or 2 into it. they have wives or girlfriends. kids. rent...they could cover all that if they just shovel sand.
but they dont. they quit and then go back to a burger king and make 8 an hour for 32 hours a week and then complain that there are no jobs and they are broke.
i will never understand it...
as a man with responsibilities you do what you have to do.

if they were on 55 hour weeks then they are gonna be making 24 bucks an hour for 15 of those hours.

a 55 hour week would be $985 a week before taxes.

how in the hell can people walk away from that and go back to making 8 an hour for 32 hours?
at that rate for 32 hours that is 256 before taxes.

so it is real close to a months worth of checks from bk in 1 week

that tells me that people are not as desperate as we all hear

put it like this...
my rent is 650. ive been able to may my rent for 2 months off of a 1 weeks check before.
my hourly rate plus a disgusting amount of overtime.

a lot of people at the foundry rolled like that.
a lot of times overtime was mandatory. other times they had certain things going on so they would ask for volunteers.
it was always the same few guys from each department.
in quality when they would ask for volunteers all the guys would kind of look down. me and my boy ivan was all over it.
i dont blame the guys for not volunteering...it got rough sometimes.

if you worked 14 hour days monday-friday the last think you want to do is work 10 on saturday and 8 on sunday only to be put back on 10 hour days monday.

i always took it man...it worse me out and i missed a lot of time with my wife and right after my baby was born but i was bringing a lot of cash. we were wanting to do a few things and didnt want to do it on credit. we just had our daughter so there was an expense there.

it takes its toll on you man for sure.
but you do what you have to do..

originally posted by: Bundy
I asked if i could go on lunch, after i cleaned up everything and i was basically sweeping clean floors to look busy. He said no (i was the only employee not allowed a lunch, Oklahoma has weird ass labor laws and i fell into one of the worst ones), I asked him why, his words were "Because daddy #ing says so" and he flicked a cigarette at me and walked off. Well i was like "F it" and i went to lunch anyways. Fired three days later for it.

I'm not sure how I would handle that. Being told no for lunch is fine. Truthfully I almost never take lunch/breaks at work. I feel like I'm not pulling my weight if I'm sitting around not working. The cigarette though, flicking a cigarette at someone is like spitting on them. Once someone does that, something is going to happen. It sounds to me like you should have deflated his tires.

originally posted by: Grovit
yeah man. it happens all the time. people dont want to do the work.
ive seen so many people quit on their first day...there are a lot of people that work at the foundry that have been there years. then when new guys come in, not too many of them make it to the year mark.

one of the jobs we call the pits. pays 16 an hour. all you do is shovel sand...youre in trenches shoveling sand. 8-10-12 hours a day.
people dont stick around for that one.

Some people excel in that type of work, many don't. A lot of people need some type of mental stimulation while working, the purely physical stuff is just a grind. That said, I respect anyone who can do that day in and day out, it's a job I couldn't do. I could probably handle that job for about a week, after that I would have an idea in my head to build a robot to do it instead and if that didn't pan out I would be out of the job.

that tells me that people are not as desperate as we all hear

There's a real problem among people that they want a decent job with great pay with no work. No one wants to start at the entry level for a career anymore and that's because we don't have a culture of career labor anymore. I bet if people knew they could do the sand job for 6 months, then move up to something else, then further past that, and so on they would be more willing to do it. That's not how people think about these things anymore though and a large part of that is because our employers are McDonalds which have virtually no advancement.

i always took it man...it worse me out and i missed a lot of time with my wife and right after my baby was born but i was bringing a lot of cash. we were wanting to do a few things and didnt want to do it on credit. we just had our daughter so there was an expense there.

it takes its toll on you man for sure.
but you do what you have to do..

I can't fault anyone for that choice. My dad made the same choice with me, he focused on his career at the cost of time so that he could buy me nice things. Some of those things were really useful like the computer he got me at 2 years old that taught me to read and go online by the time I was 3 or the private schooling. Other things were toys with no lasting impact, but they sure made me happy in the moment. I guess though that it comes down to your philosophy, these days I'm a minimalist so stuff doesn't hold much appeal to me, time and conversations with people do however.

20 years in the future people will never think back fondly on the time they didn't spend together so it's all a balancing act.

Looking at their menu it's $9 for a meal (cheapest burger, large fry, large soda), $15 for their big burger. Real affordable.

all these bull# companies paying the lowest amount possible..then they wonder why they need to hire so much..nobody can live off that #