Fast Food Worker Strikes!

[piscator]

That being said, raising the minimum wage would put stores like McDonald's under economic pressure to automate in order to reduce the cost of burgers. They would find ways to do the same job with fewer employees, if possible.

1. How is this different from the present?

2. How is McDonald's under economic pressure to sell burgers as cheaply as they can? I would think they are under economic pressure to sell burgers for the maximum the market will bear.

[Svartalf]

Because if they are pressured into raising prices, people may decide that there are tastier/healthier options in the new price range.

[Warren Dew]

Don't pay em more. That'll push pay demands throughout the working population upwards and push up inflation massively.

1157566_10151633167731275_869969815_n.jpg

And if the minimum wage were $0.40 today, Coito might not have a problem doubling it now, either.

[Warren Dew]

Yeah but, you have to pay these guys that much; otherwise who'd do the creating and stuff?

So the top executive is paid about $5 per $18,564 employee? That doesn't sound so disproportionate to me.

[Kristie]

Don't pay em more. That'll push pay demands throughout the working population upwards and push up inflation massively.

1157566_10151633167731275_869969815_n.jpg

And if the minimum wage were $0.40 today, Coito might not have a problem doubling it now, either.

Um, inflation? I think you're forgetting about it. Minimum wage would be $10.74 if it had stayed caught up with the rate of inflation.

[Ian]

Perhaps much higher than that, depending on where you set the comparison point.

[Warren Dew]

Don't pay em more. That'll push pay demands throughout the working population upwards and push up inflation massively.

1157566_10151633167731275_869969815_n.jpg

And if the minimum wage were $0.40 today, Coito might not have a problem doubling it now, either.

Um, inflation? I think you're forgetting about it. Minimum wage would be $10.74 if it had stayed caught up with the rate of inflation.

No, it wouldn't. The CPI was 24 in 1949. It's now 230. $0.40 then was the equivalent of $3.83 today.

Double that, and you get $7.66 - almost exactly what it is now. And that's leaving aside the fact that it didn't actually double back then - it only rose to $0.75.

I know it's tempting to believe whatever memes are prettiest, but looking up facts is more effective for making informed decisions.

[piscator]

Because if they are pressured into raising prices, people may decide that there are tastier/healthier options in the new price range.

Like Taco Bell or KFC?
Or do you think Americans would become so enraged at the $0.34 increase of a LeRoyale avec fromage that they would spend the $2.33 on blueberries instead? I don't.

BTW, the only fast food in my little Alaska town is a Subway franchise that pays sandwich artists $10/hr to start. Most of us glom fast food when we visit Anchorage. I'm a Carl's Jr man myself. My girl usually holds out for the Backpacker at Moose's Tooth pizza, but that's not really fast food.

[Ian]

Don't pay em more. That'll push pay demands throughout the working population upwards and push up inflation massively.

1157566_10151633167731275_869969815_n.jpg

And if the minimum wage were $0.40 today, Coito might not have a problem doubling it now, either.

Um, inflation? I think you're forgetting about it. Minimum wage would be $10.74 if it had stayed caught up with the rate of inflation.

No, it wouldn't. The CPI was 24 in 1949. It's now 230. $0.40 then was the equivalent of $3.83 today.

Double that, and you get $7.66 - almost exactly what it is now. And that's leaving aside the fact that it didn't actually double back then - it only rose to $0.75.

I know it's tempting to believe whatever memes are prettiest, but looking up facts is more effective for making informed decisions.

Comparing it to 1949 is misleading. The minimum wage adjusted for inflation kept going up (not steadily, but upwards) until it peaked in 1968 at around $10.50 in 2012 dollars. It has declined (not steadily, but downwards) ever since.

[Sean Hayden]

So the top executive is paid about $5 per $18,564 employee? That doesn't sound so disproportionate to me.

Okay, how does that address the concerns of people working for an increasingly profitable company while seeing significant raises only at the top, and no change to starting pay?

[SteveB]

I read the Yahoo news article about this. They had an unmarried girl named Shaniqua with a 1-year-old and an unemployed boyfriend as the human center for this story. I mean...come on!

[Sean Hayden]

I read the Yahoo news article about this. They had an unmarried girl named Shaniqua with a 1-year-old and an unemployed boyfriend as the human center for this story. I mean...come on!

This is how Marxists get their foot in the door. You think this is about minimum wage, but the target is actually free-market capitalism.

[Azathoth]

Don't pay em more. That'll push pay demands throughout the working population upwards and push up inflation massively.

1157566_10151633167731275_869969815_n.jpg

And if the minimum wage were $0.40 today, Coito might not have a problem doubling it now, either.

Um, inflation? I think you're forgetting about it. Minimum wage would be $10.74 if it had stayed caught up with the rate of inflation.

No, it wouldn't. The CPI was 24 in 1949. It's now 230. $0.40 then was the equivalent of $3.83 today.

Double that, and you get $7.66 - almost exactly what it is now. And that's leaving aside the fact that it didn't actually double back then - it only rose to $0.75.

I know it's tempting to believe whatever memes are prettiest, but looking up facts is more effective for making informed decisions.

Here are some numbers for you[

http://www.alternet.org/labor/apple-wal ... ge-stiffer

Based solely on its U.S. business, Walmart makes over $13,000 in pre-tax profits per employee (after paying them), which comes to more than 50 percent of the earnings of a 40-hour-per-week wage earner.

A little-known fact about Walmart that impacts most of us: A study in Wisconsin by the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce determined that a typical Walmart store costs taxpayers over $1.7 million per year, or about $5,815 per employee.

Not mad enough yet? Four members of the Walmart family made a combined $20 billion from their investments last year. Less than half of that would have given every U.S. Walmart worker a $3 an hour raise, enough to end the public subsidy.

...
McDonald's employs 440,000 workers worldwide, most of them food servers making the median hourly wage of $9.10 an hour or less, for a maximum of about $18,200 per year. The company's $8 billion profit, after wages are paid, works out to the same amount: $18,200 per employee.
...
In summary, for the U.S. and around the world, McDonald's makes over $18,000 in pre-tax profits per employee (after paying them), almost 100% of the earnings of a full-time food service worker. The company's own employee budget recommends a second job to make ends meet.
...
Now for Apple. Like Walmart and McDonald's, the company pays extraordinarily low wages to its store workers, an average of about $12 per hour, or $24,000 per year for a full-time employee. In-store salespeople make up about half of the total workforce.

With 80,000 worldwide employees (50,000 in the U.S.) and a 2012 profit of $55 billion ($19 billion declared in the U.S.), Apple made an astonishing $697,000 per employee in 2012 (almost $400,000 in the U.S.).

Greedy cunts the lot of them

[Warren Dew]

So the top executive is paid about $5 per $18,564 employee? That doesn't sound so disproportionate to me.

Okay, how does that address the concerns of people working for an increasingly profitable company while seeing significant raises only at the top, and no change to starting pay?

So if McDonald's has a bad year and takes a loss, all those people should work for free for a year?

[laklak]

Doesn't make a monkey's to me, I don't eat garbage. If a few fat asses have to eat a few less Big Greasy Double Transfat BacoCheeseFoodProduct Burgers a year, so what?