BBC News: Living in cars and motels - what it's like to work at the 'Happiest Place on Earth'

[AndrewC]

I mean I get that the Mouse is rich and he should share some of his profits with staff. Wages probably should increase. But, I'm not entirely sure this is a "primary" job or whatever. I really thought this was more of the 18 to 24 age type job where kids are either burning some time before jumping into college, or doing online classes or community college or something. I also thought it might attract retired people that love the Disney brand, or need a solution to health care, same with a spouse that is looking for a health care supplement for the family or a flexible schedule to bring in extra money for fun/vacation, college fund for a kid, saving for a big purchase, etc. I thought Disney was really lenient on staff basically giving away every shift for a significant time (like a couple weeks or something) before they would start to cut how many hours you might be given or ask/require you to work a certain amount of hours in a given pay period. There's not a lot of jobs like that, even fast food level jobs usually will start to kick you off the schedule if they see you giving up half your hours a week or two in a row.

I know I'm going to get slammed for this, and maybe they could afford to pay everyone $30+/hr with full time work (that's a huge key, doesn't help at all if you only get 18 to 20 hours at $30), **without** drastically increasing prices at the park or reducing operating hours... but I kind of thought a lot of these operations with huge labor like that kind of worked because it was transient "kid" jobs that would accept very basic pay.

 

[disneychrista]

I don't understand the sentiment in some of these posts where "entry level" jobs are not supposed to produce a livable wage when minimum wage jobs were originally made so that one could live off that wage (with housing etc.) but since the 1980s I would say it has been harder. They should have increased the minimum wage 40 years ago but they never did. So this whole entry level job thing is a moot point imo. Everyone deserves to have a livable wage, and minimum wage was originally meant to do that.

I don't believe minimum wage was ever intended to be the minimum an individual needs to survive. It was intended to be the minimum an employer could legally pay an employee to prevent them from paying significantly less. Currently in California minimum wage is $16/hr. Which no one can live on. Period. But without the set minimum wage nothing would prevent an employer from offering $10/hr or even less.

To have a truly livable minimum wage in would take $30/hr and likely closer to $50 in places like Anaheim. As I stated above, increasing minimum wage to a livable wage would only cause the prices of everything to increase which would in turn necessitate the wage to be increased again. It would be a never ending cycle.

 

[AndrewC]

I don't believe minimum wage was ever intended to be the minimum an individual needs to survive. It was intended to be the minimum an employer could legally pay an employee to prevent them from paying significantly less. Currently in California minimum wage is $16/hr. Which no one can live on. Period. But without the set minimum wage nothing would prevent an employer from offering $10/hr or even less.

To have a truly livable minimum wage in would take $30/hr and likely closer to $50 in places like Anaheim. As I stated above, increasing minimum wage to a livable wage would only cause the prices of everything to increase which would in turn necessitate the wage to be increased again. It would be a never ending cycle.

$50/hr? $104k a year? Time to buss people in from 45 minutes away or something. Pay them for the time showing up and leaving.

 

[JerrodDragon89]

I do want to point out they could pay what many would see as insane as in near 50 dollars but then how would the stock holders get more money back and the CEO be paid insane amounts?

Its not that companies can't pay people more, its they choose not to.

Parking is 35 bucks (they didn't even pay for the Mickey and Friend's garage to be built the state did), beers are like 15 bucks, other cocktails are near 18, magic bands are 40 bucks, and instead of having 1000 see fantasmic for free they have dinning packages that can go up to 90 bucks.

They have money its where the money goes after thats up for debate.

 

[AndrewC]

There's an estimated 35k Disney employees in and around Disneyland. $50/hr would be ~$3.6 billion a year in labor or just under $10 million a day. Let's assume 50,000 park goers a day. They've got to each spend an average of $200/day to just cover that labor. Now some will have very high averages if paying $700/night at a Disney hotel, but other's might be close to that $200 a day, or even under it if they are Key holders or local and on a SoCal ticket. That's also no other overheads or costs or profit, just labor.

Parks and experiences made $32.5 billion in 2023, 10% of that would be labor in just one park, and I would argue that Disney world has larger staff counts and there are six major Disney parks across the globe...

 

[LAS2AMS]

More people want to live in Southern California than there is available housing. The housing supply is stagnant, largely because nearly all the available land has been developed. Most new housing is created by repurposing old industrial/ commercial property.

This means there’s competition for existing housing and this prices are high. I have a very healthy income that would make me well off in most rest of the country, but I often feel like I have to walk on eggshells to make things work. (It would’ve been helpful had I purchased a home in years’ past but I followed fatherly advice that CA real estate is going to collapse. I could afford a nice home today, but the property taxes alone would exceed the mortgage payments most people pay for similar housing elsewhere). In the past 5 years alone, our rent has jumped $1,000.

Ultimately, we’re paying the “sunshine tax” to live here and anyone who works at Disney will have to endure the same. If you don’t like the idea of living in a mediocre apartment with roommates, move elsewhere - somebody will take your place. Housing occupancy is nearly 100% and people are having trouble finding a place to live. (Meanwhile, on Fox News, everyone is moving out lol). Manipulating the minimum ware never works - it just ends up in everyone paying more. Nobody wins.

Complaining about what business owners pay their employees is a whole another topic.

 

[LKing]

That's also no other overheads or costs or profit, just labor.

I was at the parks both Saturday and Sunday this weekend. It was in the 90s. As I walked past the open doors of stores and restaurants it was nice to feel the cool breeze. It made me wonder what their utility bills are like.

 

[disneychrista]

$50/hr? $104k a year? Time to buss people in from 45 minutes away or something. Pay them for the time showing up and leaving.

There was some California representative arguing for a $50/hr minimum wage.

My guess is you would have to bus people in from much farther away than 45 minutes.

 

[AndrewC]

I was at the parks both Saturday and Sunday this weekend. It was in the 90s. As I walked past the open doors of stores and restaurants it was nice to feel the cool breeze. It made me wonder what their utility bills are like.

I'm sure operating costs are pretty insane, that said, if they aren't generating energy they're probably buying it wildly dirt cheap as a huge industrial user. I know in Florida they actually own a utility district and power plant, anything extra they purchase from the open market grid, which would be about as cheap as you can buy power.

 

[LKing]

Interesting. It isn't my industry at all. In California, it looks like they are using Anaheim Public Utilities

A Disney Parks Blog says:
Did you know a solar array sits atop Radiator Springs Racers at Disney’s California Adventure? More than 1,400 high-efficiency solar panels soak up the California sunshine above the attraction, helping power the magic of Disneyland Resort. Fun Fact: the 40,000-square-foot system generates an amount equivalent to the energy used to power 100 Anaheim homes each year. Ka-Chow – that’s how we Git-R-Done!?

 

[irlandaise]

A Disney Parks Blog says:
Did you know a solar array sits atop Radiator Springs Racers at Disney’s California Adventure? More than 1,400 high-efficiency solar panels soak up the California sunshine above the attraction, helping power the magic of Disneyland Resort. Fun Fact: the 40,000-square-foot system generates an amount equivalent to the energy used to power 100 Anaheim homes each year. Ka-Chow – that’s how we Git-R-Done!?

Ah, I'd never noticed that before on Google satellite view. So there is.

 

[twodogs]

The idea of minimum wage is very complicated, way too much for my brain. But as a small business owner (not in California), I think about the impact of making a minimum wage $30 or $50 on a small business versus a very large one like Disney. We are two owners and we have 2 employees; their payroll makes up the vast majority of our overhead. If we had to pay a minimum wage of $50/hour for jobs that only require a high school education, we would have to shut our business down because we would immediately go under. It is not a situation of CEOs making millions and holding onto all the money that could be used to pay staff a higher amount, at least in the case of most small businesses. Perhaps laws related to minimum wage might have some exceptions under a certain number of total employees, but I believe the idea of a “minimum” wage is that all businesses must honor it across a state.

 

[LKing]

The idea of minimum wage is very complicated, way too much for my brain. But as a small business owner (not in California), I think about the impact of making a minimum wage $30 or $50 on a small business versus a very large one like Disney. We are two owners and we have 2 employees; their payroll makes up the vast majority of our overhead. If we had to pay a minimum wage of $50/hour for jobs that only require a high school education, we would have to shut our business down because we would immediately go under. It is not a situation of CEOs making millions and holding onto all the money that could be used to pay staff a higher amount, at least in the case of most small businesses. Perhaps laws related to minimum wage might have some exceptions under a certain number of total employees, but I believe the idea of a “minimum” wage is that all businesses must honor it across a state.

I'm in the same situation. Small business owner in California. With minimum wages going up ($17 in Los Angeles, $20 for fast food workers, $25 for healthcare workers), we have to survive with fewer employees. As I mentioned before, I am using software to do a lot of what I used to pay entry level employees to do.

 

[twodogs]

I'm in the same situation. Small business owner in California. With minimum wages going up ($17 in Los Angeles, $20 for fast food workers, $25 for healthcare workers), we have to survive with fewer employees. As I mentioned before, I am using software to do a lot of what I used to pay entry level employees to do.

I am in healthcare, and in Texas. If our minimum wage was $25, we would have to do with less staff for sure. Automation/software can help some, but you also need human beings to do certain jobs... It is a really tough situation! @LKing I totally get what you are going through and wish you the best in California-that is really tough.