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

a reply to: WilsonWilson

I dont understand why people think businesses shouldnt pay a living wage?

Because people are obviously taking those jobs.

a reply to: TDawgRex

Doing some thinking and I just realized, my brother works for the State Department of Transportation, PennDOT. He doesn't even make $15 dollars an hour! He is a truck driver.

Now if the minimum wage goes up, then accordingly the state and I imagine states will raise their wages as well, so what does that mean?

Higher taxes!

Like I said earlier, raising minimum wage is nothing but a tool to buy votes! If they truly cared about people being able to make a living, THEY would do something to bring manufacturing jobs back to this country!

a reply to: Hoosierdaddy71

The point is these jobs represent the bottom line of our economy.

This business should be going to small mom and pop shops that could be making a smaller but more reasonable profit increasing the overall health of the local economy.

Sorry Tdawg but your distracting people from the real issue here and the real issue is that big business is destroying local economies.

originally posted by: onequestion
a reply to: Stormdancer777

No that's what I make and I have to work 60 hours a week to save.

my daughter makes five bucks an hour bar-tending and is reliant on tips, and people are not tipping, and she has a college degree, and is still looking for a job.

a reply to: ManBehindTheMask


You are right I shouldn't judge all the people I should have said in my experience, my father had a couple of gas stations back in the day and any time we would post a full time cashier position we would only get part time requests and when asked why they couldn't do full time most would say they didn't want their welfare checks taken from them.

originally posted by: Stormdancer777

originally posted by: onequestion
a reply to: Stormdancer777

No that's what I make and I have to work 60 hours a week to save.

my daughter makes five bucks an hour bar-tending and is reliant on tips, and people are not tipping, and she has a college degree, and is still looking for a job.

What kind of degree? That's kind of important.

originally posted by: Stormdancer777
a reply to: TDawgRex

Sadly, fifteen dollars an hour is not a livable wage anymore.

Yea...not where I live it isn't. Not even in the bad part of town.

originally posted by: seeker1963
a reply to: TDawgRex

Doing some thinking and I just realized, my brother works for the State Department of Transportation, PennDOT. He doesn't even make $15 dollars an hour! He is a truck driver.

Now if the minimum wage goes up, then accordingly the state and I imagine states will raise their wages as well, so what does that mean?

Higher taxes!

Like I said earlier, raising minimum wage is nothing but a tool to buy votes! If they truly cared about people being able to make a living, THEY would do something to bring manufacturing jobs back to this country!

I'd give you a flag if I could.

You have summed it up better than I did.

originally posted by: TDawgRex
a reply to: kimar

Ah...love the personal attack. I guess I hit a nerve, eh? I respect people who work at all levels, but any one who thinks that flipping burgers or mowing lawns is a great career choice is a idiot. If they use it as a stepping stone to become a franchise owner or to become management, then they are not. Your reading comprehension is lacking and you immediately jumped onto a emotional level.

I would say that your level of willfull ignorance is showing. You fail to see or recognize what is in front of you because it doesn't fit your world view.

Jobs are out there. There are plenty of them and they pay decent wages. But people these days don't want to lower themselves (or so they think) to the level of a trashman, or trucker, or welder, etc, etc. Or they don't want to move to where the jobs are. So, yes, I feel no sympathy for people like that. They made their bed, not the CEOs.

You did hit a nerve. When I see people attacking the most vulnerable and oppressed members of society I call it exactly what it is: an act of cowardice. You claim to respect all workers but the words that you use and the ideas you promote show the exact opposite. Stand by what you said instead of attacking my ability to comprehend what you so clearly stated.

"Jobs are out there." Evidence and reality show otherwise.

a reply to: TDawgRex

First off, I would like to say asking for $15 is a bit much. The $11.11 movement had far more backing. Or even $12.

TDawg, I doubt you would see less part time and more full time. Corporations and businesses don't get tax write-offs for employee retention. They do get them for costs of seeking employees, training new employees...

If wages aren't raised, I can see the return of the Union. And not the bloated fronts for lobbying that exist today, but the Union of the worker seeking a fair wage...the kind of Union that scares Wal-Mart into shuttering stores.

originally posted by: Hoosierdaddy71

originally posted by: Stormdancer777

originally posted by: onequestion
a reply to: Stormdancer777

No that's what I make and I have to work 60 hours a week to save.

my daughter makes five bucks an hour bar-tending and is reliant on tips, and people are not tipping, and she has a college degree, and is still looking for a job.

What kind of degree? That's kind of important.

teaching, English major

And the last restaurant she worked at was loaded with servers with degrees

Or the Billionaires raking in profits off MD could take a bit less profit.

a reply to: TDawgRex

You're correct.

However this is the American way of doing business that's crap. Pay awful and get someone that will accept that wage because they are desperate. IMO this is a bad way of doing things.

As an example I'll use Benihana. Benihana years ago had excellent food prepared by chefs that had some 10-20 years of experience cooking Hibachi.
But an american company took over and fired the long timers. Now when you go there the food is a shadow of what it used to be.

If you pay well you get good workers.

This does have the effect of taking the crappy workers and forcing them to become better or get out. Which is a good thing. People need to incentive to become better.

a reply to: TDawgRex

Pretty much. If someone flipping burgers can make can go from $8/hr to $15 an hour, then I want my hourly wage to be nearly doubled as well.

originally posted by: Stormdancer777

originally posted by: Hoosierdaddy71

originally posted by: Stormdancer777

originally posted by: onequestion
a reply to: Stormdancer777

No that's what I make and I have to work 60 hours a week to save.

my daughter makes five bucks an hour bar-tending and is reliant on tips, and people are not tipping, and she has a college degree, and is still looking for a job.

What kind of degree? That's kind of important.

teaching, English major

And the last restaurant she worked at was loaded with servers with degrees

That degree only qualifies her for two jobs. Teaching and writer. Good luck making a living as a writer.
That is a huge problem with colleges today. They hand out degrees in unemployment. I wish your daughter luck

a reply to: Stormdancer777

There's plenty of college grads barely squeezing by that's a known fact.

The premise of the op is a limited perspective.

Our idea of jobs and economy are ludicrous when we have the technology to replace all labor positions.

We need to focus on creating a better social structure and get away from the idea of capitalism and start focusing on humanity.

originally posted by: seeker1963
a reply to: TDawgRex

The whole raising minimum wage and living wage is nothing more than a distraction from the real issue. That being, the United States government has sold all of our middle class, blue collar, manufacturing jobs to cheap over seas labor countries.

Any politician that is pushing for a higher minimum wage is doing nothing more than trying to cover their behinds from having to reveal to the American public that we are destined to fail because we have been forced into an economy that is based on low wage service industry jobs.

This whole scheme along with all of the unnecessary regulations that are being levied against small businesses will create a giant vacuum that will kill almost every small business in this country! Starting to see the picture yet?

And it is not going to get any better because of the Trans Pacific Partnership put together by 605 unelected corporate advisers of which the public and congress are not allowed to know the details.

The solution is not a minimum wage increase but to kill the trade pacts put in place by corporate lobbyist and neocon globalists.

www.flushthetpp.org...

Below is a list of 605 corporate advisers who have been allowed access to the TPP text, while the public and members of congress have been kept in the dark. (This list was originally published by Sojourners.)



economyincrisis.org...

Trans-Pacific Partnership: Forced on Americans by Lobbyists

If the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is successfully negotiated, passed and implemented, every American will be affected in some way. Similar agreements have put scores of Americans out of work while forcing others to live in constant fear of layoffs. With so much at stake, you would think the American people should be informed about trade negotiations. This has not been the case with the TPP. The negotiations for this agreement have been going on behind closed doors, shutting out the American people. One group, however, has not been shut out: lobbyists.

The logical conclusion is that corporations and lobbyists have been driving the TPP from the beginning. The majority of Americans feel that free trade agreements have been bad for the country overall. With no public desire for such an agreement, the push must be coming from those corporate interests that directly benefit from agreements like the TPP. While the American people have been shut out of the negotiating process, over 600 lobbyists have been let in as “corporate trade advisors.” These are the individuals that will shape this new agreement, saying no to aspects that hurt their bottom line while pushing for those that maximize their profits.

a reply to: MystikMushroom

The point of debating weather or not they deserve this wage or not is null and void in the overall perspective of the economic health of the entire community.

It's practically ignorant to sit here and debate what we think they deserve when we all know the sad facts that these large conglomarents and Wall Street are sucking the life blood out of the local economies through big business.

originally posted by: kimar
The ignorance displayed by the OP is disgusting.

"People who work at Mickey D's as a career and aren't management are idiots."

Did you seriously just write this? I'd love to live in a world where there were available jobs, but that is not the case. A lot of people work these jobs because there isn't anything else.

We need to be honest and start labelling the kind of rhetoric shown by the OP as exactly what it is: hatred of poor people, which is, frankly, cowardly.

Cut CEO and executive salaries and give the people on the front lines - you know, the people who actually DO THE WORK - a fair share of the pie.

Besides, the above price stats come from The Heritage Foundation, which has a vested interest in spreading lies and furthering the economic divide. They represent the interests of the rich, the powerful, the well-connected. Truly when it comes to social justice and economic equality their opinions should be considered null and void.

Personally I agree with the OP's statement.

There are actually quite a few jobs available if you look, there are thousands were I live... but get this... YOU NEED SKILLS TO APPLY FOR THEM. Skills are one thing that the 20 and 30 somethings making a career out of flipping burgers lack, they also for a large majority lack the ambition to better themselves.

Outside of management, fast food and low paying service jobs are not meant to be career jobs. They are low skill, low paying jobs with dead end advancement potential. It's just another snapshot of our "lazy American" persona.

Blame the rich, it's easy to do. I also agree that most CEO's are grossly overpaid for what they do, they do more than our politicians but not by much. Blaming them only goes so far and they all worked hard to get where they are at, its pretty rare that a trust fund baby becomes a CEO without going to college first and getting their feet wet second. THEY HAVE SKILLS and get paid according to them. They have the drive and ambition to get where they are, and you would probably be surprised to learn that at one point in time they had the same jobs that these people we are talking about currently hold, only they used them as a stepping stone to something greater, not as a crutch to bitch and moan about because they are stuck in a low paying job with no future.

If they do get $15/hr then $15/hr will be the new "$8.00/hr" .

originally posted by: MystikMushroom
a reply to: TDawgRex

Pretty much. If someone flipping burgers can make can go from $8/hr to $15 an hour, then I want my hourly wage to be nearly doubled as well.

I understand, my son just graduated, just got a job in his field ,computer technology, a good job, even that doesn't keep up with inflation.