here is the problem. In order to pay 10% more, I will need to earn 10% more which in turn I would have to charge my customers more so in turn they would need to earn more, and pretty soon everything would cost more so the person that was just earning a livable wage would now have to pay more for everything and there goes the extra money that they made and they are right back where they started from. Certain jobs were never meant to be a job that you made a living at. They were great jobs if you needed to augment your income, so you had more money to spend. For jobs that are intended to provide a livable wage, those require more education, skills, training. Say a person is now making 15 bucks an hour as an EMT, a kind of standard wage in parts of the industry. Along comes a fast food worker who is now making the same 15 an hour. Is someone that can come in and save your child's life worth the same or more than the person that asks if you want fries with that? You bet they are so now they get a wage increase to $20/hour. But here is a paramedic that was making $20/hour, but because of their skill set, schooling, training is now worth more than a basic, so they are now making $30/hour. Then you have a firefighter paramedic/HEO that was making $30 an hour, but because of their skill set they are worth more than a paramedic so now they are worth $40/hour. And on and on it goes until the fast food worker that is making $15/hour is no longer making a livable wage because now everything costs more than before. Now toss in inflation, shortages, higher fuel prices goods cost more for farmers to grow, trucking/rail/air/ship transportation costs go up, housing, apartments/rental prices go up and everyone is right back where they started. While it looks good on paper, ok we just fixed this issue, yet the cycle repeats itself because of all of the rising costs. Toss in paying people more to stay home and not work than they were getting while they did work you see the mess that it has gotten us into now. Double digit inflation, a probable recession, a shortage of workers in all fields. You cannot spend your way to prosperity, it just doesn't work.
This is exactly right. As a business owner any time my cost of living increases or a new tax is added to my costs, I simply divide that over all my customers, add on additional maintenance of about 10% more and then adjust my prices. It's honestly stupid asf. No business owner pays tax or mandatory wage increases or such, it's 100% (or usually more) passed onto the end customer. If the end customer will not pay it, the business goes out of business and those people lose their jobs, which further decreases spending power in the economy. So it's just really dumb asf to ever mandate anything... at least if you care about poor and lower middle class people because they are the backs upon which all this is carried.
@Fireguy17 far leftists will never comprehend this even though what was predicted years ago is now coming true.
On the surface I do NOT think it’s “okay” to underpay unskilled workers just because you can. But those jobs are not meant to be long term careers for anyone. If you are doing that crap all your life that’s more of a you vs. a society problem.
I did all sorts of low paying bitch work in HS and college. Did landscaping and construction (got the worst jobs). It was just to make side money while I got better educated to move up to something else.
Some people make more money but a lot of people make NO money. Also inflation started shooting up right when Biden took office. This wasn’t supposed to happen because the pandemic was ending and people are going back to work.
@msc545 hmm food costs more, gas costs more... 12hr people should make more to help pay for things yet I should make less? But gas costs more food costs more... I need to make more to just afford the same things too. I don't get how you think when things cost more, I should make less money. I wouldn't be able to pay my bills!
@msc545 that's not really how it works... there's and overabundance of people looking for unskilled high wage work so if you pay 10 or more per hour for these nonsense jobs you got more than enough people. But the real issue was what you just skirted over... gas goes up so employees need more pay... so do owners... the owners don't go gee my gas is up, food is up, everything's up, let me take a pay cut. Lol. No way.
@bamesjond0069 ok, keep doing what you are doing, and soon you won't have any workers, or you will have bad workers, or you will have ones that are immediately looking for better-paying jobs. If your business model doesn't work then you should revise it or become a worker yourself.
@Fireguy17 "everything is interrelated to each other"
True, but raising wages only affects the price you pay for services (including indirect services like, say, a farm labourer's or delivery driver's wages). Double everyone's wages and you don't double the price of land, or rent, or fertiliser, or the price of the truck that delivers the goods, so you shouldn't double the price of the goods.
You just described the inherit problems with minimum wage mandated by the government rather than letting the free market determine what a job should pay.
It is scary to think liberals want to tie it to inflation... seems to me that would make inflation sky rocket like crazy.
Not sure why so many think businesses can afford to lose some of their profit margins. Many businesses barely have a 10% profit margin to begin with.
@goaded "... you don't double the price of land, or rent, or fertiliser, or the price of the truck that delivers the goods..." actually those go up too. In the very short term maybe not immediately but they do also increase. Don't you pay labor to repair the truck? Doesn't labor build the trucks? You think in terms of just what you see directly in front of you and don't trust other people with other expertise that we know what we know but we should trust you know what you know... with what proof? Go run a successful business that pays the lowest totem workers a great wage and show how right you are. In the meantime you will have to trust what other people who actually do this stuff that we know what we know.
@bamesjond0069 Yes, obviously there will be some increase, but there's no reason to double the price of a product if the price of labour doubles, it should only go up according to the proportion of the cost of labour to the price of the product.
In the past, labour costs were the reason for 62% of inflation (it got locked in in the 1980's; everyone negotiated based on the idea that inflation would be the same next year as this, I was there and working). In the last year, labour costs made up under 8% of inflation, and profits made up 54% of the rate of inflation. Clearly, corporations could almost halve inflation overnight and still increase their profits.
@goaded 1 I disagree with your attributions. Very basic and specific way of looking at it I don't think applies to our conversation.
2. Even if I give it to you. Most business is not mega corporations. Your issue is with coke and Ford not every single business in your town. Small businesses have been and are being squeezed. I own a multimillion dollar business. I'm just a dude this isn't damn Facebook or tesla. Those businesses do not function according to normal business principles because they get govt subsidies. So I have issues with how they run too. But they are the biggest winners when it comes to increasing wages because they use it to put mom and pops shops out of business. Or they squeak under the laws like Walmart paid people exactly enough so they could qualify for govt assistance... and then helped them get the assistance so basically the government was paying their employees part of a poverty wage... these companies also get free money to build stores amazon and walmart... I have never got that... wtf?
No. Because this is a false argument and as an American living in South Korea where fast food workers get paid more than they do in the US, AND food isn't that much more expensive (maybe one to two dollars extra, and it has nothing to do with wages), I know for a fact that it's a false argument that their low wages are from the cost of food and not plain old greed.
CEOs and billionaires could lose 1% or even 0.5% of their yearly income and pay workers twice as much as they get now. They just don't want to, have no incentive to, and instead, want to blame you for it.
It's just as messed up as American tipping culture, where retards expect you to pay $20 extra to some low-skilled waitress and will get mad at you if you don't tip them, instead of getting mad at the managers not paying them a legal wage. It's not my burden to "tip" anyone for doing the very bare minimum of their job or not spitting in my food. Yet do people stop tipping and start protesting for fair wait staff wages? No!
So piss off if you think I'm going to give some waitress $20 extra outside of the bill, like it's my problem. Same exact logic applies to the "minimum wage burger flippers," which I used to be one of back at 18.
You are all blaming the wrong people, not that these jobs are supposed to pay "living wages" to begin with. If you work in fast food and aren't living with your parents/going to college, you've already failed in life. Not my problem. Also, these jobs are so low-skill, that it'd be cheaper and easier to replace them with robots and AI. The moment you start demanding more money for low/no-skill jobs, the robots will just replace them and then they can complain at the unemployment line.
I wouldn't mind. Sure, it doesn’t take much skill to work there, but you’re also partially paying to incentivize workers to put up with all the shitty customers and the fact that the job itself sucks the life right out of your body. Being introverted and slightly misanthropic, I’d have to be paid 100 an hour before I’d ever consider working in food service again. And I wouldn’t stay long. Hats off to the workers that keep things running.
Agree with you here. Unfortunately some people think that because they're doing a job requiring little skill means they don't deserve to make enough to live on their own. The job sucks and yet people that complain about their pay being liveable go their everyday. Those companies are billionaires only because people put up with the nonsense customers throw at them daily. They could be in turn to at least be able to afford a one bedroom apartment somewhere, make enough to save a few bucks too.
Why do we need to pay more? These companies already make billions. They can afford to give workers a better wage. It's amazing how small companies manage to yet these giant ones some how can't.
If a company pays minimum wage what their saying is if we could pay you less then we would.
We already pay too much in taxes, so paying more, even for something seemingly good, isn't an appealing solution. Keep in mind that if taxes are low enough, any job can pay enough to live off, AS LONG AS inflation is kept low (which it isn't right now, and that is the core problem). Also keep in mind that fast food work and similar jobs are not meant for adults living on their own to live off. They are meant for high school and college kids who live with parents or in a dorm and don't need to pay rent. An additonal tax isn't going to solve anything because all it will do is make citizens pay for what the EMPLOYERS should be paying their employees.
Either we need to legally enforce increased pay by a minimum wage increase, or we need to have all fast food workers and others with low pay go on strike to leverage the employers into increasing pay because with how much trouble they are having with filling job openings, they likely won't find enough scabs to run their businesses. We also could work on making fuel prices lower, and it wouldn't be hard to either.
Absolutely, but that’s not what happens. The extra costs go directly to the unproductive wealthy at the corporate level. McDonald’s PR people will insist a sandwich needs to be $10 to “compete”. Meanwhile their CEO and CFO make millions a year. Literally, no joke. https://www.salary.com/research/salary/employer/mcdonalds-corp/ceo-salary
If we are speaking McDonalds hell no. You do know how much money they rake in and it don't cost a lot for them to buy stock at all that large cola you just got £2 ya wanna know how much it costed them to fill the machine mere pennies.
Mcdonalds could easily pay it's workers better and even make things cheaper and will still rake in the cash. Then we aren't even going into how this would just mean things would go up in price anyway. It's like great you give them an extra 70p but now all sudden when they go food shopping themselves they now realise every product is 70p more than it used to be.
Anyone who understands money would not agree to this idea. And I intentionally left out the word inflation because most people who say that tend to have zero clue about it lol.
You shouldn't have to. Check the profits. Oil companies and grocers are experiencing RECORD profits while crying inflation, all the while short staffing stores, holding wages down and performing stock buy backs with their fountains of money. The corporations are in conrtrol, all this de-regulation, and the tax cuts that allow many mega corporations to pay ZERO in taxes proves one thing for sure. Reagans trickle down didn't work, hasn't worked, Never will work. Corporations have absolutely no interest in letting ANYthing trickle. Would I be willing to? Sure, but make these money making juggernauts pay their damned fair share.
The lower the prices are, the more people will be able to afford the shit and the more money the people selling it will make!! I don't understand why people don't get that!! Once you raise the prices at one place, people need to get paid better where THEY work to be able to afford those raised prices and that mean where THEY work the prices have to be raised and that means someone else has to raise there and it just never ends!! By the time company Z raises theirs to meet demands of everybody else's prices, company A will have to raise theirs, again and that started the whole process all over again!! You're getting nowhere fast!!
No. Food quantities have reduced yet prices still rise. Everyone is hurting.
Now if paying more taxes helped burn the current healthcare system down and rebuilt one for the people, cutting out the obnoxious rich with control issues, then I might be on board, as that helps everyone.
They want to punish the public by making us pay more cause these billionaire industries are that selfish. They know what will happen, it will make the poor turn on one another instead going after these companies who intentionally jack prices up for no reason other than fact they are greedy. A billionaire company like McDonald's won't be financially hurting by paying their workers better wages.. they can afford it but act like they can't.
@888theGreat Really? You can buy a US dollar for 10 SEK. Their pay is 160SEK, or $16 per hour. "Mcdonals sweden pays about 16$ per hour, mc donalds USA on avarage 10$, the Big Mac costs about 30 cents more."
Exactly. The greed of people unwilling to pay $0.70 more is about on par with the greed of the corporations that they are bashing for making too much money. Hypocrisy is thy name.
I’m guessing this is a question aimed more towards those who live in the United States. I suppose we technically already do that here. A combo is anywhere from $10-15 depending on what you get. And minimum wage where I am is $15. Fast food isn’t the issue though, the cost of living to simply buy groceries has gone up a lot. Especially for meats.
And these workers themselves have to pay higher prices to subside. Also there will be fewer job openings since employers have to pay more per employee.
So I give a huge congrats to all you giddy liberals who passed the $15 an hour minimum wage. Peoples real earnings have gone down thanks to inflation.
Table 1.15 from the National Income and Product Accounts, US Bureau of Economic Analysis. Via www.epi.org/.../
"Normal and recent contributions to growth in unit prices in the nonfinancial corporate sector 2020 Q2–2021 Q4 1979–2019 average Corporate profits 53.9% 11.4% Nonlabor input costs 38.3% 26.8% Unit labor costs 7.9% 61.8%"
@goaded nah I care more about WHAT is right vs BEING right. There is a difference. I am used to seeing far leftists argue out emotion but calmly provided some hard facts.
I just want what works. Yes I don’t think people should be underpaid but you can’t crush enterprise development through excessive regulations, taxes, etc. either.
I don't think anyone wants to "crush enterprise development", but there is a place for regulation because of damage to the environment (Nixon created the EPA), or exploitation of workers (which can be as simple as allowing them to form or join unions).
From the perspective of Germany, the idea that a company's workers would vote not to join a union that the employers were happy for them to do is insane!
It's the difference between sharing the fruits of people's labour and exploitation. If there's no company, you don't have a job, but if the company takes all the profits from your work...
Fuck this, we should be getting mad at politicians who waste tax money and landlords for essentially price fixing the real estate market.
Houses are selling for way more than they're actually worth and nobody is talking about that. I believe if housing was affordable, most of our problems would become manageable.
At some point the cost gets prohihitely high and I'll just stop going, which is worse long term for earnings at that particular place.
But here's the thing, fast food is not a job to expect a living wage. It's for high schoolers. Instead, do what you need to to expand your qualifications. Doesn't have to require college.
Not going to happen. I rarely eat fast food for one. I have busted my tail and work in the medical field. I don’t have a degree, but I make really good money. I might do it for a higher quality restaurant, but not fast food. At a nice restaurant I am paying for the service, quality and atmosphere.
Is anybody gonna gripe about $0.70? Sounds like greedy corporations to me. Also, those fast food companies increased their profits so it's not a matter of them increasing prices because they can't afford to raise wages, it's because those greedy companies want more profits.
The problem with this question is 10% is nowhere near enough. By the time a business pays the 7% FICA on all wages, and for things like unemployment taxes and on-the-job disability insurance, and things like accounting for regulatory compliance the actual amounts of money required will be larger. Using the $7 example I would be willing to say to actually pay for a $15 wage that meal will have to be closer to the $16 to $18 range. Also, the business will have to lay off as well.
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Anonymous
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Hell no. A fast food job should not be a job that you rely on for the rest of your life. I can see if you work there while in high school, or college. It’s bad enough I get taxed at about 39% in taxes, then still being taxed on food, purchases, etc. No way. Besides a lot of the fast food joints can’t even get your order right. These owners should foot the bill on that one.
So you are one of those greedy SOBs making at least $400,000 and you're mad about someone wanting to make $30,000. Congratulations. You are one greedy piece of...
@AndrésC64 so you’re an idiot for assuming I make that much? I wish I made half of that. Don’t be a moron. Someone shouldn’t have to pay more because they took the time to go to school or do whatever they needed to in order to make that much. If you want to make that much then make it happen. Stop crying about it. Working at McDonalds or any fast food restaurant doesn’t require much thinking unless you’re in management or something, I know cause I worked at Taco Bell for 3 years. But I changed all that by going to school cause that’s no way yo make a living.
In Canada the cost of living is constantly skyrocketing, even at 15 an hour you're definitely still struggling. In America the fact their minimum wage is so pathetically small, it's a wonder how people live at all.
Nope. That happens naturally. If grocery stores can't get enough employees they have to raise their wages. If they raise their wages, their prices will go up.
No. Companies need lower their margins and government need to lower taxes, because real wage didn't increase in last 5 decades, taxes and margins did immensely.
I do not have a problem with it, but there is the potential for a domino effect as at least one other person pointed out. Not only on pay in other jobs, but also it could cost sales and thus jobs.
I don't mind paying 10% more for red lobster but Taco Bell and McDonalds are already over priced and under delivering.
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Anonymous
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No one in their right mind would think that they can work at a fast food joint and support a family. It's an ENTRY LEVEL JOB! Get somework skills, make yourself more useful, and EARN a better wage.
I don't think I would be. What happened to fast food jobs being held by teenagers and college students?
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Anonymous
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Here's the truth. People who go to the likes of McDonald's are generally people on a low wage. Anyone else who makes money and has money eats healthier and better usually cooking something from home which works out cheaper.
Interesting many here said NO. With the level of homelessness, housing shortages because many cannot afford home or rent because the corporate chain store thats been profiteering can't pay them a wage to live?
Compared to how much it costed in 2019, it has already gone up like 30% so fuck that. If those guys want a better wage, they can develop a skill that is worth a better wage and look for another job that pays that wage.
23.8K opinions shared on Society & Politics topic.
We live in a free market society. If your only skill is flipping a hamburger then you need to rethink your career plans.
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Anonymous
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Nope. There's actually a shortage of skilled workers in this country. If people make a s***ty wage, it's generally because they don't want to take the necessary steps to make themselves marketable for those jobs.
Well, yeah. At least, you’ll make slightly more money. But, everybody better start supporting their ethnicity-owned businesses that support their finances if they don’t want to pay 10% more.
"So people with low skill shouldn’t be able to make a liveable wage."
No they should not. That is LITERALLY the whole point! If they're too lazy to go to college on financial aid, or get a trade job, that is their problem. These jobs are meant for teenagers and part time college students. You're not supposed to be in your late 20s or 30s working fast food or at Starbucks. Nothing needs to be "fixed" except these people's own lives, and that is not anyone else's responsibility.
@MCheetah Yes. You made a bold point. People should hardwork and study at early stage of life to get a good job. But some may end up in such jobs cos of circumstances
Hell no. Fast food workers are already paid too much. They make like 15 to 17 per hour where I live. Fast food is not the type of work a person is supposed to be living off of.
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