Here’s How the Price of Your Favorite Fast Food Would Change With a $15 Minimum Wage

I never stated that we deserve more money because life got hard, or just because. I state that we deserve not to make an ever decreasing standard of living because inflation is out of control and CEO's and shareholders demand more of the profit pie. Minimum wage has defacto been DECREASING over the last 40 years. I am not even saying to bring it up to the same purchasing power that it was before. Just to at least bump it up a little so those depending upon it can stay afloat, rather than submerging permanently under the increasing cost of living and debt burden. We, as a country, are massively more profitable than we have ever been.....but all that profit share has gone to a select few, and none has been left for the workers, without whom it would not have happened.

I have been a hospital worker for the last 15 years, and can tell you that although the medical industry is raking in massive increases, there has been a freeze on salaries for 7 years in the majority of hospitals I have worked in, and they are constantly cutting our benefits and increasing our work load. This is not about keeping wages stagnant because they would go out of business. Its about squeezing more profit by overloading the workers with extra duties and cutting the cost of paying them so that those on top make more money while others are doing the work for them.

a reply to: Blackmarketeer

Fast food wages are so low it's workers are taking 7 billion per year in public assistance.

Fast-Food Wages Come With a $7 Billion Side of Public Assistance

McDonalds alone took 1.2 billion per year of that tab. I guess we prefer to have our taxpayers help pay the labor costs for McDonald's Corp rather than have the company pay it's own worker's compensation. WalMart does the same thing, pay it's workers an abysmal hourly rate and let the taxpayers pick up the slack.

Yep!

So, now that there's a rumor (?) that Obama signed a reduction in food stamps - maybe the REAL COST of living and eating will be passed on to the Corporations, instead of to the taxpayer!!

People - either you pay more for your Big Mac, or you pay more taxes at the end of the year. Either way, it's the corporations that you are 'paying' to subsidize their workers. Directly or indirectly....meanwhile, those CEOs and such are hoarding their profits overseas and paying NO taxes on them.

And that's okay with you all????

As for only idiots working at McD's (or any fast food place) - that is a bald-faced lie. Retirees and educated people who can't find work in their fields are reduced to working there now. Hell, I even applied at Taco Bell, and got no response - and I have decades of customer service and supervision behind me!!

originally posted by: TrueBrit
a reply to: TDawgRex

I hear you Dawg.

I do however, have to answer a couple of points from your post.

You state, that you have an issue with a living wage being applied to part time workers. However, students at colleges and universities are often part timers, and students often need to be able to rely on a source of income in order to gain the skills and education which will allow them to be the next Steven Hawking, Motzart, the architects of the future! Preventing these people from earning a decent wage at the same time, promotes a situation where only those born to money are able to gain an education without having to sell a bodily organ! The introduction of a living wage, means that all of those people who work at places like McDonalds to help them get through college, will actually be able to do ONE job to achieve that goal, leaving the appropriate number of hours in the day for study, sleep, and keeping healthy, rather than having to be in the lab or the lecture theatre, or at work, all the hours of the day.

How many geniuses (bearing in mind that many people who are actually full on prodigious geniuses, have about as much patience for nonsense like functioning their petty mortal flesh existence, as I do for David Cameron) do you think have fallen by the wayside, their intellects for ever lost to society, because they had to work four jobs on top of trying to get a degree? I would say it is probably more than you think.

You also need to remember, that just as here in the UK, not everyone who has part time work, has it because they CHOOSE it. Many people in part time work, have part time work because there is not enough full time work available at the skill level that they happen to occupy, about which those individuals can usually do, precisely nothing. Is it fair that they should be penalised because the companies that are hiring new staff, are only hiring part time?

And as demonstrated by the death of a Dunkin Donuts employee recently, who was working at no less than FOUR individual franchises and still had to live in her CAR to make ends meet (although one could argue, that if one is living in ones car, the ends have utterly failed to conjoin), the idea that part time workers are not working as hard or as long as full timers, is patently false. They often are, but are forced to work multiple jobs (adding travel time to their working day, between each outlet for which they work).

Furthermore, when someone works for a company which offers them a decent, fair wage, a wage they can actually function a life out of, they do two very important things. First of all, they are motivated to keep that job, and that means knuckling under and making sure that they do a bang up job wherever possible. Now, that might not have solved your Chevy issue, because lets face it, if all that is in the lot, is red Chevys, then it is pretty hard to imagine what even the most determined rental employee would be able to do about it, short of going out the back and assembling one on the spot for you.

But I mentioned that a wage one can live on inspires people to do two very important things, and this is the second. Someone who is well paid enough, to rent a home, feed themselves, and save money as well, is not just an absorber of funds, but a spender of currency. Essentially, those who provide one type of goods or services, in order to receive payment for doing so, will go and acquire goods and services for themselves. Perhaps they will save up, and get a car. Perhaps they will save up and marry their significant other. Perhaps they will spread that wealth around local businesses in their communities, meaning that all of those businesses benefit from the proceeds of that individual, as well as the individual themselves living an improved lifestyle.

Perhaps by doing this, by increasing the minimum wage to the point where it functions an existence without augmentation, it will reduce the amount of government assistance that is handed out. The customer, as you quite rightly say, is always right. But the customers opinion is only important if the people who are employed to service their needs, are being correctly treated by the business for which they work, and society as a whole. I certainly would not expect stellar service from someone who was being paid less than the cost of their physical existence, per hour, to be there! I would expect a nervous breakdown, but not good customer service!

The $15 question is what a living wage really is here in the USA? $15 isn't much to live on depending on where you live. My wife an I make over 4x what these workers want, we have 4 kids and I could argue that $60 or $70/hr isnt a living wage. It's such an ambiguous term, it's an "individual" term, and therein lies the problem. We each know what we want or what we want to make to live the lives we want to live. Views will vary widely regardless if you are a burger flipper or a neurosurgeon. From my experience as a bachelor, pre marriage and kids, $15/hr didn't go too far and that was 15 years ago, and I made more than that.

So what really is a living wage? How much per hour? I know you folks in the UK are high up on the minimum wage list but how far does minimum wage go while trying to secure housing in London and food and the other essentials, from what I saw when I was there it doesn't go far at all. Canada has the least disparity of classes and even then it seems there is a varied opinion of wages and standards of living.

a reply to: BuzzyWigs

As for only idiots working at McD's (or any fast food place) - that is a bald-faced lie. Retirees and educated people who can't find work in their fields are reduced to working there now. Hell, I even applied at Taco Bell, and got no response - and I have decades of customer service and supervision behind me!!

Absolutely, nearly everyone I see working in the local fast food joints are older, most are middle aged females but an alarming number of semi-retired males as well. Fast food work is no longer the provenance of the entry-level teens. We exported all our good jobs that the older workers once had so they are now working in the service sector, virtually our only remaining job sector in America.

a reply to: pexx421


The only ones that matter in this country is the CEO and Shareholders. That is it. There is no We the People. Caring about the policies effecting all Americans is socialist thinking.
Take note that the majority of the wealth in this country is tied up in Finance thanks to Big Government, not in building and making stuff as it used to be.

a reply to: TrueBrit

Your post is one of the reasons I consider you a bud, and gives me hope for the future. You recognize that this is a complex issue. It's not just one thing or another. To top it off, your younger than I am and living in a somewhat different culture/government, and it gives me pause to think.

I know kids here in the States who have the Silver spoon, education bought and paid for before even entering college.

Others work part time jobs and get grants/loans to fulfill their educational needs (These are the ones I really worry about as they are stacking up debt)

And others like myself, who take classes as we can afford them. I've never taken a class unless it was bought and paid for before I stepped through the doors. Hmmm...still don't have a degree, but my resume shines!

But when the government legislates a new minimum wage that doubles the current one, I just can't see any good coming out of it. The phrase, "We're from the Government and we're here to help." comes to mind.

As a high school drop out who has worked his way out of a very dark place, maybe I take this issue to personal? But the way I see it, if this dumbass Dawg can do it...so can anybody. Determination and being stubborn does play a role.

originally posted by: BuzzyWigs

So, now that there's a rumor (?) that Obama signed a reduction in food stamps - maybe the REAL COST of living and eating will be passed on to the Corporations, instead of to the taxpayer!!

Not so fast.
The same Farm Bill put a cut on Food Stamps and increased the amount at the same time going to Big Ag to make sure we keep propping them up.

a reply to: jacobe001

The only ones that matter in this country is the CEO and Shareholders.

Yep, and the workers earning minimum wage can't AFFORD to play the Wall Street game....

they're just struggling to make ends meet.

If they earned a living wage, they might be able to "invest" and take part....but not with the way things are now!!

They're screwed coming AND going!!

a reply to: jacobe001

The same Farm Bill put a cut on Food Stamps and increased the amount at the same time going to Big Ag to make sure we keep propping them up.

Interesting. Thanks for that info.


Sickening.

a reply to: kdyam

I would suggest, that a living wage would be enough to rent a dwelling which is actually kept to code by its landlord, eat enough to be healthy, pay utility bills, and to be able to save enough money besides that, to be a worthwhile consumer. That amount WOULD be different one place to another, purely because of cost of living being different depending where one is. But that does not present a problem.

Lets get HYPOTHETICAL!!! WOO!

Let us say (and this will be hideously numerically inaccurate, but the principle will stand), that it costs chap a) One thousand dollars a month to live where he lives, and do all the things mentioned above, and that he saves one hundred further dollars a month (unrealistic, but hundreds and thousands are numbers I can visualise while being between episodes of Adventure Time. Yes, I know I am 29 years of age. Don't judge me! ), and that chap a) lives in one place.

Chap b) lives somewhere the hell else, but the cost of living is DOUBLE that of the city where chap a) lives. The answer, would be to ensure that chap b) gets a minimum of two thousand, two hundred dollars in pay. This would be fair, because the cost of living in a place is directly proportionate normally speaking, to a healthy market place for goods, services, property, and usually relates also to good public services, which need paying for also. So, although chap b) might look like he is getting the better deal for his hours of work, relative to what it costs him to eat, keep his home warm, and things like that, it really is not any different than the one thousand, one hundred dollars that chap a) got paid, because it goes the exact same distance in terms of what it gets him!

Seems pretty damned simple to me!

a reply to: jacobe001

Have you ever thought that "We the People" are also shareholders?

Why would you hate somebody for investing in a business? Especially when there is a possible profitable return. It's gambling after all.

I've watched the markets and got out before the collapse back in 08-09 and have sat on it for a bit and since reinvested and have even more stock than before now.

Does that make me evil? (BTW...I'm still not a rich man, with the exception of my friends and family)

originally posted by: Lmistor
It is always somebody else's fault and not our, isn't it? I am perfect but everybody else is stupid... Give me a break....a reply to: theMediator

What the hell are you talking about?

And this is your first post on the forum, I mean, you created an account just to say that to me when you don't even know me at all?

Yeah ok, then it's my fault the economy is breaking down, that the world is basically at war, the polution, the destruction of the Amazon forest, the constant wars in the middle east, the supression of cleaner energy, the supression of cures, the lobbying, the famine in Africa and the dumbing down of society.

It's all my, and your, fault and not the rich oligarchy of parasites that are the problem.

Give me a break, I have no more power than you, so why blame me?

originally posted by: Blackmarketeer
a reply to: BuzzyWigs

As for only idiots working at McD's (or any fast food place) - that is a bald-faced lie. Retirees and educated people who can't find work in their fields are reduced to working there now. Hell, I even applied at Taco Bell, and got no response - and I have decades of customer service and supervision behind me!!

Absolutely, nearly everyone I see working in the local fast food joints are older, most are middle aged females but an alarming number of semi-retired males as well. Fast food work is no longer the provenance of the entry-level teens. We exported all our good jobs that the older workers once had so they are now working in the service sector, virtually our only remaining job sector in America.

Yep, in the Fast Food Joints close to me, there are many middle aged and senior people working in them.
That's what happens when you allow corporations access to our government to pass of their free trade pacts.





People need to take back the power over our government from those only concerned about profits and shareholder value.
This is every American's Government.

a reply to: TDawgRex

People work these jobs for a variety of reasons, but to say that is the only job they can get is pure BS.

Wrong. It's reality.



Next??!!!

a reply to: BuzzyWigs

That's BS. I earned minimum wage and still managed to save AND invest. It's all a matter of priorities. I gave up the wants of the here and now in favor of the needs of my future.

Yes it was hard, but I kept myself fed, clothed and housed during that time. My entertainment consisted of the local library. When I see a minimum wage person with the latest smart phone, my sympathies go out the window. Yes, maybe it was given to them, but perception is reality.

Life is hard, life is not at all fair. Trying to make it such through legislation will only make things worse.

originally posted by: Urantia1111
a reply to: TDawgRex

Maybe if these restaurants are forced to pay $15 per hour, they'll insist on decent intelligent workers and not just hire any brain dead moron off the street. I'd gladly pay a couple extra bucks for my food. Might boost the quality of the whole fast food experience.

Do you not see the irony in this?

These are low paying jobs, for a reason. Because morons need jobs, too.

By raising the pay, and thereby requiring the intelligence quotient to be higher, you are thereby eliminating the ability of those morons to get any job.

Then, we are right back where we started.

These are entry level jobs, for a reason. They give people a chance to start at the bottom, like we all must do, and get a foothold, and move up the ladder.

Only the morons who cannot, or, lack the will, or intelligence quotient, do not move up the ladder.

So, some people think morons should be paid the same as smart, strong willed, hard working people that are willing to sacrifice to move up. Then, there is no gap, right? Any moron can now be a CEO, and if you refuse them that position, you are therefor racist or classist.

The problem is, by raising minimum wage, and creating a new class of worker, you are making the job market even smaller for morons.

Why not, instead, just come out and say it? Idiots deserve CEO pay, too? That's really the end game here, isn't it?

These jobs are a way of seperating the wheat from the chafe. Sorry, but that's the reality of it. You work hard, you move up, you move out, you move on, and do better. You earn what you deserve.

This is creating a whole class of people that want the same pay because they are a warm body, showing up, doing a half arsed job, wanting a paycheck. The people with the real drive get stuck pulling the weight, proving their worth, then, moving on.

And guess what? The morons remain behind, awaiting the new influx of newbies, who repeat the same cycle. The morons that are lifeless, dormant, and unwilling to change, that force others to pull their weight, that force others to prove their worth, that will again, move up, move on, and become more successful.

They now want what those that move up, move on, and become more successful want.

What ever happened to the simple concept, if you don't like the job, or the pay, get another job?!

But, you see, the people who have their hands out, wanting more for nothing, have learned by placation, that they don't have to work harder or work smarter.

Just gritch and moan loud enough, and soon, someone may placate you.

In reality, they are being used, however. Yes, victimized.

The real story, and ask yourselves why, why are the Unions, who have NO stake in this game (these are non-union companies that will never be union), so strongly behind this?i

I can answer that for you. I have, many, many times.

If the minimum wage goes up, Unions get a raise by default! No negotiations! Bam! Fat pay raise! At LEAST 15%!

The Unions are using these people like little puppets, and the morons are too stupid to see it, and they are eating it up.

The Unions get a FAT raise, and guess what? Union Labor Pools get smaller, because they just eradicated a whooole group of people that MAY have had a chance at an entry level, non-experienced workers job.

Once it happens, the Labor Unions will only hire from within, because it costs too much to train morons that simply show up for a paycheck, and work off the backs of others!

Even the Uinions KNOW this, are happy about it, because it greatly increased their pay, and hugely decreases job competition.

But, the morons are too stupid to see, they are shooting themselves in the foot.

What you once used to have to work for, work your way up the ladder, everyone wants from an entry level, out of highschool, first job.

Big fat clue. If you are still working at McDonald's, and are not a Senior making a little extra pay on top of SS, or, are over 18, and only gotten one 10 cent raise, YOU ARE A LOSER!

If you stay, you have the problem. If you bend over and ask for it, you get what you deserve. If you can't do better, you should have stayed in school. If you need more money, quit smoking!

Have kids you can't pay for? Wrap the whopper!

I am sick of paying for everyone elses lazy, lacsidasical attitude when me, and millions like me all started out the same, and moved up and moved on.

If you can't get past an entry level job, look within. The problem is YOU, not the company!

And lastly, who do you think you are to walk in, sign an employment agreement, then CRY about it?! Get a life.

And yes, I am tiiiired of wearing kid gloves, because I might upset someone. Soneone needs to speak the truth, once and for all. And being nice doesn't seem to get the point across.

If they raise minimum wage, Unions will be the only winners, many will be lifetime unemployed, and businesses will close, because no one will pay that, for fast food.

Maybe, afterall, that is the end goal.

Nanny state, with Michelle Obama telling you how you can, and cannot, spend your food stamps. Like someone said, be careful what you ask for, you may just get it.

I know I will get a fat juicy raise. But, then, I cook at home, and worked my way up. No shortage of jobs for me.

originally posted by: BuzzyWigs
a reply to: TDawgRex

People work these jobs for a variety of reasons, but to say that is the only job they can get is pure BS.

Wrong.



Next??!!!

Yea, I'm next. Care to back up your opinion with any hard boiled facts? I don't think you have any other than your feelings are hurt as you look at this issue emotionally rather than rationally using hard math.

Next?

originally posted by: TDawgRex
a reply to: jacobe001

Have you ever thought that "We the People" are also shareholders?

Why would you hate somebody for investing in a business? Especially when there is a possible profitable return. It's gambling after all.

I've watched the markets and got out before the collapse back in 08-09 and have sat on it for a bit and since reinvested and have even more stock than before now.

Does that make me evil? (BTW...I'm still not a rich man, with the exception of my friends and family)

Wall Street used to be the means to grow main street. Now it is a means to grow other countries main street while ours dies. How is that putting our country first? The Neocon Socialists "care" more about emerging economies and policing the world than they do about this country in order to get rich.

I don't gamble with any of the big investment banks because they are a bunch of thieves. We are just muppets to them.
One thin dime thrown their way from me gives them legitimacy. Even if I could make a sure million dollars out of it I would not out of principle.

a reply to: TDawgRex

That's BS. I earned minimum wage and still managed to save AND invest.

Well, good for you!! Let me guess - living in your parents' basement, no rent or mortgage, or if renting, sharing a dump with five other underemployed people....no dependents, no utilities...no student loans or anything.....probably not even a dog. Or a goldfish.

Just you and your minimum wage. Right?

Now - fast forward 30 years - you have a wife/kids/grandkids/a home/ - and an advanced degree - but even Taco Bell won't call for an interview. Your excellent job (that you worked to get) is now shipped to India or China or Thailand...you are over 50, and the 20-somethings will work for 1/3rd of what you were being paid - and do it for 70 hours a week.

Get over yourself. This is real...middle aged people are having to take menial PT jobs just to get by - their savings were annihilated either by enduring unemployment or their stocks tanking....
meanwhile, the CEOs all made back ALL of their money and then some!!!!

And you think it's all okay?

Welcome to grown-up world.

originally posted by: TrueBrit
a reply to: kdyam

I would suggest, that a living wage would be enough to rent a dwelling which is actually kept to code by its landlord, eat enough to be healthy, pay utility bills, and to be able to save enough money besides that, to be a worthwhile consumer. That amount WOULD be different one place to another, purely because of cost of living being different depending where one is. But that does not present a problem.

Lets get HYPOTHETICAL!!! WOO!

Let us say (and this will be hideously numerically inaccurate, but the principle will stand), that it costs chap a) One thousand dollars a month to live where he lives, and do all the things mentioned above, and that he saves one hundred further dollars a month (unrealistic, but hundreds and thousands are numbers I can visualise while being between episodes of Adventure Time. Yes, I know I am 29 years of age. Don't judge me!

), and that chap a) lives in one place.

Chap b) lives somewhere the hell else, but the cost of living is DOUBLE that of the city where chap a) lives. The answer, would be to ensure that chap b) gets a minimum of two thousand, two hundred dollars in pay. This would be fair, because the cost of living in a place is directly proportionate normally speaking, to a healthy market place for goods, services, property, and usually relates also to good public services, which need paying for also. So, although chap b) might look like he is getting the better deal for his hours of work, relative to what it costs him to eat, keep his home warm, and things like that, it really is not any different than the one thousand, one hundred dollars that chap a) got paid, because it goes the exact same distance in terms of what it gets him!

Seems pretty damned simple to me!

Say hi to Jake and Finn for me LOL..

I agree with you and starred your post. You put it very simply and straight forward. In a perfect world that is how it would most likely work.

Our world is far from perfect. Do you forsee any provisions for skilled VS unskilled labor? Or does the unskilled labor get the living wage as well?