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McDonald's Tries to Help Its Minimum Wage Workers

BigTreeDeac said:
Should have gotten better bootstraps to pull themselves up by.
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Have some time to kill this afternoon so I thought I would beat my head against this brick wall for awhile.

So the solution is to raise the minimum wage high enough so that they only need to work one job? If that's not what either of you are saying then please elaborate on how you are proposing to solve this problem. Easy to make clever remarks without offering actual solutions, but give it a try. I didn't see a single feasible solution from either of you in this thread.

Personally, I do think that we should eliminate all corporate subsidies and let the market do its thing. I don't like the government picking winners and losers. But requiring businesses to pay a "living wage" and obligating them to provide healthcare to their workforce isn't the answer.
 
84Deac said:
Have some time to kill this afternoon so I thought I would beat my head against this brick wall for awhile.

So the solution is to raise the minimum wage high enough so that they only need to work one job? If that's not what either of you are saying then please elaborate on how you are proposing to solve this problem. Easy to make clever remarks without offering actual solutions, but give it a try. I didn't see a single feasible solution from either of you in this thread.

Personally, I do think that we should eliminate all corporate subsidies and let the market do its thing. I don't like the government picking winners and losers. But requiring businesses to pay a "living wage" and obligating them to provide healthcare to their workforce isn't the answer.
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I think the US has made a structural mistake in tying social welfare to employment and putting so much burden on employers. If we as a society want people to have a minimum standard of living, then the society as a whole should bear that burden, not just employers or employers over a certain size, etc.

The McDonald's budget is an admission by a major employer that a low-skill worker at a near-minimum wage job cannot hope to support a family, and can barely support him/herself. I don't draw the conclusion that low-skill employers ought to be forced by law to pay more - they will respond by passing some cost to their consumers, trying to outsource or offshore labor, and by replacing more workers with technology (i.e. Sheetz-style self-order touchscreens, which McDonald's already has in some European franchises). That is what has happened throughout our economy when employers are forced by government or union action to pay employees more than the marginal value of the employee's services.

Instead I draw the conclusion that the "bootstraps" narrative of hard-work-will-set-you-free is naive at best, and that plenty of hard-working people still need help from society at large to have a minimum standard of living. That means we need a social safety net of reasonable well-designed programs that promote and reward work, and that safety net needs to be supported by taxpayers at large.
 
There aren't enough jobs for the people who want them. If fewer people worked two jobs, unemployment would decrease.
 
PhDeac said:
There aren't enough jobs for the people who want them. If fewer people worked two jobs, unemployment would decrease.
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Quoted for posterity. Some people are just hogging all the jobs! Yeah...that's the problem.
 
84Deac said:
Quoted for posterity. Some people are just hogging all the jobs! Yeah...that's the problem.
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You like an economy in which people need jobs and others need two just to make ends meet?
 
I think Ph raises a good point in the primary regard that there aren't enough jobs in this country across a lot of sectors. It's not as bad as say...Spain or Portugal, but it's not good. And when each person in minimum wage situations has to take two or three, the number of menial jobs gets divided by two or three.

I know people say that raising minimum wage, or the idea of a living wage is bad for business, and would eliminate jobs, but it wouldn't have to if there was a bit of income redistribution. Unfortunately, there is perhaps no more taboo word in the English language to businesspeople than "redistribution," be it of wealth, income, jobs, or what have you.
 
TownieDeac said:
I think Ph raises a good point in the primary regard that there aren't enough jobs in this country across a lot of sectors. It's not as bad as say...Spain or Portugal, but it's not good. And when each person in minimum wage situations has to take two or three, the number of menial jobs gets divided by two or three.

I know people say that raising minimum wage, or the idea of a living wage is bad for business, and would eliminate jobs, but it wouldn't have to if there was a bit of income redistribution. Unfortunately, there is perhaps no more taboo word in the English language to businesspeople than "redistribution," be it of wealth, income, jobs, or what have you.
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I would assume you mean a bit more income redistribution? Because, there is a good deal of redistribution going on already.
 
Increasing wages and creating jobs would increase demand. I'm not sure what the wealthy think the working poor do with their money if not put it right back into their hands. Or I guess I could say redistribute it back into their hands.
 
PhDeac said:
Increasing wages and creating jobs would increase demand. I'm not sure what the wealthy think the working poor do with their money if not put it right back into their hands. Or I guess I could say redistribute it back into their hands.
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More for me NOW!!!!!
 
just happened to come across this.

http://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/202...w-impossible-it-is-to-get-by-on-minimum-wage/

The minimum wage in this country is reprehensible. If the minimum wage had kept up with inflation it would be over $10 an hour. If it had kept up with productivity? It would be $21.72.
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also this, if true, kinda shoots down the idea that these jobs are held by teens:

Well, 87.9% of minimum wage earners [at MCD] are over the age of 20. 28% of those people are parents trying to raise a kid on this budget.
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also (not from the above article) "living wage" has a definition in the literature; i know there was some confusion over just what I meant when I said living wage. i read it as basically providing for a lower middle class existence within a given time and society, including some recreational activities.
 
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The problem is that the workers earning minimum wage are not the ones creating the increased productivity. Computers and robots are, for the most part. If you're going to have a minimum wage, I can see some argument for indexing it to inflation (although some would argue that would actually create a feedback loop) but indexing to the productivity of people and machines other than the wage earner makes no sense at all.
 
yeah i agree, i think the reason that was written was to kind of put in perspective how much the economy has grown relative to minimum wage which has been stagnant. machines are making the pie bigger but the min. wage worker's relative portion is shrinking rapidly.
 
Exactly. Growing the pie doesn't help the poor cut off a bigger slice.
 
If McDonalds really wants to help then they should deny their employees the right to eat there...that would drive HC costs down dramatically. Hell, they wouldn't even need insurance if they stopped eating that shit 24/7.
 
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