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My business can't survive unless my employees are living in poverty Another way of looking at this would be: a job in McDonalds is not supposed to be a means o

My business can't survive unless my employees are living in poverty Another way of looking at this would be: a job in McDonalds is not supposed to be a means of supporting the family of four. It's a side gig for teenagers, not a "full-scale" job.

goodcharles 7y ago
Teenagers aren't available until, what, 4PM? Who is supposed to run the restaurant the first 12 hrs of every day?
- AlexTWithBeard 7y ago
  Stay-at-home moms?
  - SolaceQuantum 7y ago
    But mothering is a full time job. That's kind of the point of the SAHM- a human adult must be around regularly a child below a certain age. At least half a decade. Often closer to a full decade. I don't think leaving for a shift every day or even a shift multiple times a week is feasible for a parent of a child below a certain age.
  - bart_spoon 7y ago
    Then they aren't stay-at-home moms, are they?
  - ddnb 7y ago
    But once they start working they aren't stay-at-home moms anymore.
cooljacob204 7y ago
That is not the reality of it unfortunately. Might be a side gig for teenage you, but not everyone has the education or network to do better.
- thrower123 7y ago
  That is the tragedy of the next couple decades that needs to be solved. What do you do with the increasing share of people that do not have the capabilities to be productive in the economy?
  - AlexTWithBeard 7y ago
    Teach a profession at school?
    - SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
      Which profession? All of them? Who pays for that sort of support in school? And given that there are only so many hours in the day, what do we lose? Do we need even more of our soft skills and arts removed as we build a society solely around getting people into a career and keeping them there? Are we OK with people who don't understand history or geography because they don't need really need those skills as plumbers? And wasn't a high school education good enough 50 years ago for most positions? Companies have been able to force the burden of debt for gaining the skills required for a job onto the individual, through exorbitant college fees and unpaid internships, now you're advocating the government should take on the specialization that the private industries require? As a college student one is barely able to figure out their interests - there's so much push to start planning well in advance, I have no idea how we can expect a tween to commit to a career path.
  - alfromspace 7y ago
    What do you do with the increasing share of people that do not have the capabilities to be productive in the economy? Nothing, then import twenty million more of them?
  - cooljacob204 7y ago
    Just because it's a low skillcap job does not mean they are being unproductive.
tanilama 7y ago
True. It is not like McDonald's is already pushing for those self-order kiosks.
- mtbcoder 7y ago
  It's not true, it's just a trite, condescending right-wing talking point repeated ad nauseum all over the Web whenever a discussion of minimum wage pops up.
david38 7y ago
The minimum wage by definition was designed to allow a man to provide a family of four with a “modest living”.
- AlexTWithBeard 7y ago
  I think that's the definition of "living wage".
  - interactivecode 7y ago
    why would minimum wage be less than living wage? everything below living wage should be called poverty
    - whoopdedo 7y ago
      I did a very brief dig into historical justifications for the minimum wage. One thing I wanted to check is if "living wage" was a more modern term, but both were in use 100 years ago. The writing of the time speaks of minimum wage as a worker health and safety issue. The first minimum wage laws in the U.S. only applied to women and children. As part of the labor movement, it was often described as a type of collective bargaining. Where it was seen as providing a living wage was not directly at the minimum wage but because of the inflation effect it would have on more skilled wages. That by raising the wage floor, the industries in which a head of household would be employed in would have to raise their pay accordingly to that of a living wage. So there's truth that minimum wages weren't introduced to be living wages themselves. At the same time that was 100 years ago and we shouldn't be writing laws for today based on the assumptions of the 1900's.
pytester 7y ago
>Another way of looking at this would be: a job in McDonalds is not supposed to be a means of supporting the family of four. Supposed by whom? McDonalds will suggest it's best their jobs be seen as side gigs for teenagers because that's the explanation that best supports their profit margins. The reality is that families of four will have to be supported by McDonalds wages if no other jobs are available for the individual in question. Another way of looking at it is: what percentage of citizens do you think society should artificially inhibit from being able to support children? Is it 5%? 20%?
smileysteve 7y ago
> It's a side gig for teenagers, not a "full-scale" job. It would make sense if the minimum wage for "teenagers" jobs had kept up with the cost of college tuition, or even the increases in costs of a used car or insurance over the last 10 years. Some teenagers in impoverished areas are helping their parents make ends meet too; others are emancipated and need a living wage.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
lwelyk 7y ago
That's not remotely true. If the fast food sector was "meant for teenagers" they wouldn't open until like 4 pm when school was out.
jaredandrews 7y ago
From the source of the clowns mouth: - What is the average age of a McDonald's employee? - The average age of an 'hourly-paid' employee is 20. You might like to know that we employ 120,000 people of all ages, from school leaving age to people in their 80s. We're also one of the biggest providers of first-time jobs in the U.K. https://www.mcdonalds.com/gb/en-gb/help/faq/18338-what-is-the-average-age-of-a-mcdonalds-employee.html https://www.mcdonalds.com/gb/en-gb/help/faq/18338-what-is-th...
Endy 7y ago
I'm on mobile, so I can't go looking up the exact quote. But, per FDR - the greatest President and greatest American - any business that relies on paying less than a living wage has no right to exist in this country. And a living wage isn't just basic subsistence, but the wages of a decent living.
namarie 7y ago
And yet the reality of it is different. Are the people who work there deserving of not being able to survive reasonably? Secondly, why should teenagers have to work in the first place, instead of studying?
gwd 7y ago
> It's a side gig for teenagers, not a "full-scale" job. Then make the minimum wage for <18s $8/hr, and the minimum wage for >18s (or maybe >22s) $15/hr.

goodcharles 7y ago

Teenagers aren't available until, what, 4PM? Who is supposed to run the restaurant the first 12 hrs of every day?

AlexTWithBeard 7y ago
Stay-at-home moms?
- SolaceQuantum 7y ago
  But mothering is a full time job. That's kind of the point of the SAHM- a human adult must be around regularly a child below a certain age. At least half a decade. Often closer to a full decade. I don't think leaving for a shift every day or even a shift multiple times a week is feasible for a parent of a child below a certain age.
- bart_spoon 7y ago
  Then they aren't stay-at-home moms, are they?
- ddnb 7y ago
  But once they start working they aren't stay-at-home moms anymore.

cooljacob204 7y ago

That is not the reality of it unfortunately. Might be a side gig for teenage you, but not everyone has the education or network to do better.

thrower123 7y ago
That is the tragedy of the next couple decades that needs to be solved. What do you do with the increasing share of people that do not have the capabilities to be productive in the economy?
- AlexTWithBeard 7y ago
  Teach a profession at school?
  - SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
    Which profession? All of them? Who pays for that sort of support in school? And given that there are only so many hours in the day, what do we lose? Do we need even more of our soft skills and arts removed as we build a society solely around getting people into a career and keeping them there? Are we OK with people who don't understand history or geography because they don't need really need those skills as plumbers? And wasn't a high school education good enough 50 years ago for most positions? Companies have been able to force the burden of debt for gaining the skills required for a job onto the individual, through exorbitant college fees and unpaid internships, now you're advocating the government should take on the specialization that the private industries require? As a college student one is barely able to figure out their interests - there's so much push to start planning well in advance, I have no idea how we can expect a tween to commit to a career path.
- alfromspace 7y ago
  What do you do with the increasing share of people that do not have the capabilities to be productive in the economy? Nothing, then import twenty million more of them?
- cooljacob204 7y ago
  Just because it's a low skillcap job does not mean they are being unproductive.

tanilama 7y ago

True. It is not like McDonald's is already pushing for those self-order kiosks.

mtbcoder 7y ago
It's not true, it's just a trite, condescending right-wing talking point repeated ad nauseum all over the Web whenever a discussion of minimum wage pops up.

david38 7y ago

The minimum wage by definition was designed to allow a man to provide a family of four with a “modest living”.

AlexTWithBeard 7y ago
I think that's the definition of "living wage".
- interactivecode 7y ago
  why would minimum wage be less than living wage? everything below living wage should be called poverty
  - whoopdedo 7y ago
    I did a very brief dig into historical justifications for the minimum wage. One thing I wanted to check is if "living wage" was a more modern term, but both were in use 100 years ago. The writing of the time speaks of minimum wage as a worker health and safety issue. The first minimum wage laws in the U.S. only applied to women and children. As part of the labor movement, it was often described as a type of collective bargaining. Where it was seen as providing a living wage was not directly at the minimum wage but because of the inflation effect it would have on more skilled wages. That by raising the wage floor, the industries in which a head of household would be employed in would have to raise their pay accordingly to that of a living wage. So there's truth that minimum wages weren't introduced to be living wages themselves. At the same time that was 100 years ago and we shouldn't be writing laws for today based on the assumptions of the 1900's.

pytester 7y ago

>Another way of looking at this would be: a job in McDonalds is not supposed to be a means of supporting the family of four. Supposed by whom? McDonalds will suggest it's best their jobs be seen as side gigs for teenagers because that's the explanation that best supports their profit margins. The reality is that families of four will have to be supported by McDonalds wages if no other jobs are available for the individual in question. Another way of looking at it is: what percentage of citizens do you think society should artificially inhibit from being able to support children? Is it 5%? 20%?

smileysteve 7y ago

> It's a side gig for teenagers, not a "full-scale" job. It would make sense if the minimum wage for "teenagers" jobs had kept up with the cost of college tuition, or even the increases in costs of a used car or insurance over the last 10 years. Some teenagers in impoverished areas are helping their parents make ends meet too; others are emancipated and need a living wage.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

lwelyk 7y ago

That's not remotely true. If the fast food sector was "meant for teenagers" they wouldn't open until like 4 pm when school was out.

jaredandrews 7y ago

From the source of the clowns mouth: - What is the average age of a McDonald's employee? - The average age of an 'hourly-paid' employee is 20. You might like to know that we employ 120,000 people of all ages, from school leaving age to people in their 80s. We're also one of the biggest providers of first-time jobs in the U.K. https://www.mcdonalds.com/gb/en-gb/help/faq/18338-what-is-the-average-age-of-a-mcdonalds-employee.html https://www.mcdonalds.com/gb/en-gb/help/faq/18338-what-is-th...

Endy 7y ago

I'm on mobile, so I can't go looking up the exact quote. But, per FDR - the greatest President and greatest American - any business that relies on paying less than a living wage has no right to exist in this country. And a living wage isn't just basic subsistence, but the wages of a decent living.

namarie 7y ago

And yet the reality of it is different. Are the people who work there deserving of not being able to survive reasonably? Secondly, why should teenagers have to work in the first place, instead of studying?

gwd 7y ago

> It's a side gig for teenagers, not a "full-scale" job. Then make the minimum wage for <18s $8/hr, and the minimum wage for >18s (or maybe >22s) $15/hr.