Fast food restaurant answer to union demand for $15.00 minimum wage?

[ponyboy]

It used to be that the American dream was that you could live in America, and as long as you were willing to work hard, you could get a house and raise a small family. (even on minimum wage)

This is no longer possible. You now need two incomes, just to raise a single child and be a home owner. IN this way America is "less great" than it once was. (and so naturally we would not attract the low-wage workers needed for manufacturing)

The fact is, today people are lazier and want more. In the past poor people were poor and they knew they were poor and they lived with less and would work harder until they weren't poor anymore.

Today poor people think it's their right to have cellphones, two cars, enough money to eat out every night, cable tv, Xbox live, etc and if they can't afford all of that then our government will steal from others so that they can.

My wife and I got married when I was 20 and she was 18. We had a kid that same year before either of us were a year older. We didn't have anything of our own other than my car. We couldn't afford child care so I got a decent job making $7/hr and I worked any other odd job I could find to make extra money. We bought her a car for $500.

Between all of that work, I went to college on student loans. I got a better job and made more money. I still did all kinds of other stuff to make whatever extra I could to support my wife and even more kids. My wife worked in high school and ever since then she's been at home raising kids.

I've ran internet businesses out of my house, started up several other small businesses working with the courts. I've started up websites and learned how to make money off advertising so that they were making money while I was off doing other work making money. I worked harder at my normal job getting raises and promotions. The whole time I was learning and working hard.

Two years ago I started up a business I wanted to do for a long time but I didn't have the capital. In the first full year ending Dec 2013 it didn't $750k in total revenue. This year 2014 it's projected to do about $2M in total revenue.

We now have 5 kids, just moved into a new house on 3 acres in a nice housing addition with "estates" in the title next door to my sister who is a director at a local hospital. We have two paid for vehicles, two dogs, two cats and a flat screen tv in just about every room.

None of this was given to me. I worked hard for every single dollar I have and everything that we own. I've done without stuff so that my wife and kids could have things that they needed or wanted. I'm still working hard so that in a few years I don't have to work so hard anymore. I don't think I've strung more than maybe 3 days together since the last time we went to Disney in 2012. Most months I work pretty much every day in some capacity without any days off. We still aren't rich but we're a lot better off than where we started 18 years ago.

I don't want to hear about how the American Dream is dead and nobody can improve their situation. I did it and I did it all by myself through hard work. Anybody that is physically healthy enough to get out there and work and says that they can't improve their situation is lazy. There are opportunities to improve their life everywhere but they rather just sit at home on the couch and tell everybody about how hard they're working to not get anywhere.

I made minimum wage at one time and now I pay 8 people better than minimum wage. All it took was a bunch of hard work.

 

[ponyboy]

Not everyone can "choose" to go to college and make millions. If you can't afford your rent while you work in fast food, and your parents aren't paying your tuition, you're not going to college. Ever. No choice involved.

Then you work two jobs and take out student loans. There is always a choice, it's just that most people choose the easiest one which is to do nothing.

 

[aprescher]

Then you work two jobs and take out student loans. There is always a choice, it's just that most people choose the easiest one which is to do nothing.

Exactly!! I hate it when people say they can't! I was raised very poor not knowing where food was coming from, wearing the same clothes for a couple years, not knowing how we were going to pay rent. I worked full time from the moment I turned 16. I maintained good grades in high school and went to college on student loans while working full time. I slept through lunch and studied during breaks but I did it. Now I have bought my first house am a single person with no spouse or roommate to help pay and am making it just fine!

You have to want to and be willing to work for it!

 

[ponyboy]

What you're describing is a situation where your parents helped you. Not everyone has that luxury. Not everyone can live near a cheap college. Not everyone has the same opportunities.

You don't have to live near a cheap college, they have them on the internet now. Anyone anywhere can go to college, if they want to.

You're right though, not everyone has the same opportunities and that's called life. That doesn't mean that you just sit around having your own pity party because you didn't have the same opportunity as someone else. Where you end up in life isn't dictated by where you started out.

 

[tvguy]

That has at least as much (and in my opinion more) to do with the hours than the wages.

If WalMart (or McDonalds, or anyone else) had $8 an hour employees, with health benefits (even not great ones), that were offered 40 hour weeks on set schedules, their employees who want that sort of scheduling might have a chance to get ahead. But WalMart is interested in hiring people part time AND low wage. With the scheduling in retail, its hard to work multiple jobs - you don't know if you have the 9-3 shift or the 12- 5 shift, making it pretty hard to schedule a 4-10 shift somewhere else.

Many of their employees don't want 40 hours work weeks - my mother works retail part time - she's 70 and gets a social security check - she doesn't want full time work - she wants 18 hours a week. People who work while their kids are in school and students also fit the category of people who don't want full time work. The issue really isn't that these jobs pay lousy - its that there aren't enough jobs full time available - especially low skill jobs - for adults that want to work full time. Raising the minimum wage won't solve that problem if people are still working a 20 hour week for $15 an hour.

Clearly it can vary from region to region, here, Walmart is the only market with full time workers and benefits. The Union chain (after a strike a year ago) cut every to 19.5 hours a week, and you have to work 20 hours a week to qualify for benefits.
Walmart pays $6 an hour less than the union store, but the benefits have to be worth that much. Only bad thing at Walmart is around here they have decided to hire full time workers only, and worth them overtime, rather than hire part timers to fill the hours that are going as overtime.

 

[writermommy6]

You don't have to live near a cheap college, they have them on the internet now. Anyone anywhere can go to college, if they want to. You're right though, not everyone has the same opportunities and that's called life. That doesn't mean that you just sit around having your own pity party because you didn't have the same opportunity as someone else. Where you end up in life isn't dictated by where you started out.

And you can get Internet free at libraries.

 

[Colleen27]

Not everyone can "choose" to go to college and make millions. If you can't afford your rent while you work in fast food, and your parents aren't paying your tuition, you're not going to college. Ever. No choice involved.

Actually, the whole discussion about college and choices is entirely besides the point. Let's assume for a minute that every single young person in America did the right thing and went to college or trade school before choosing to have a family. What would happen then? We'd have 30-some million minimum wage jobs to fill. All the McJobs wouldn't disappear; you'd just have people with an education (and the accompanying student loan debt) filling them. And by ensuring an oversupply of educated workers in other sectors, you'd see downward trends in wages for traditionally better paying jobs as well.

The minimum wage needs to be raised as a response to the structural changes in our economy. Low wage jobs are no longer reserved for teens and retirees - they make up a large and growing share of our total workforce, approaching 25% of all employed Americans in the most recent figures I saw. Raising the minimum wage is a step away from allowing such a significant percentage of our population to fester as a more or less permanent underclass.

 

[Colleen27]

You're right though, not everyone has the same opportunities and that's called life. That doesn't mean that you just sit around having your own pity party because you didn't have the same opportunity as someone else. Where you end up in life isn't dictated by where you started out.

Actually it very much is. There are exceptions, of course, but the strongest predictor of future earnings is one's parents' earnings. Same for educational attainment. And as the divide between good and bad public schools widens that correlation gets stronger and stronger, because the kids who can least afford college are those who are getting there so unprepared that they have to spend a very expensive semester in remedial courses just to get to the same starting point as their middle class peers.

 

[Colleen27]

That has at least as much (and in my opinion more) to do with the hours than the wages.

If WalMart (or McDonalds, or anyone else) had $8 an hour employees, with health benefits (even not great ones), that were offered 40 hour weeks on set schedules, their employees who want that sort of scheduling might have a chance to get ahead. But WalMart is interested in hiring people part time AND low wage. With the scheduling in retail, its hard to work multiple jobs - you don't know if you have the 9-3 shift or the 12- 5 shift, making it pretty hard to schedule a 4-10 shift somewhere else.

I agree. Our McDs wants people who are available 7 days/week, any time between open and close (generally 6am to 11pm), and doesn't give employees set shifts or days off. Kmart wants the same. So does Kroger. DQ. CVS. All but the small mom & pops expect open availability and shift flexibility, which makes it all but impossible to work two such jobs or go to school while working even one. That is, at this point, might be the most difficult legacy of the "great recession" - employers don't have to put up with an employee who needs Tues & Thurs nights free for her college classes, or who wants a set shift so he can work a second job and maybe bring in enough to make ends meet. There are enough applicants with nothing else going on that they simply don't have to accommodate employees to any degree.

ETA: But a higher wage could be a step towards changing that, simply because it would reduce the number of people wanting/needing to work two jobs and 70+ hours to make ends meet.

 

[wekhogan]

Or tech school. Or trade school. Or get yourself established so that YOU are an independent adult capable of supporting kids - which might not involve college at all - but does involve some way of making enough money to afford to feed and shelter yourself - and your children.

Life does throw curve balls - and sometimes those curve balls aren't hittable - and you end up doing everything right - and still working at WalMart for $8 trying to raise kids. But a heck of a lot of people have their kids without ever thinking about curve balls - and before they can even hit a 40 mph slow pitch softball.

THIS EXACTLY. When did minimum wage become a living wage? When did it become okay to start a family if you can't support yourself or your family and just expect taxpayers to pay for it?

 

[Colleen27]

THIS EXACTLY. When did minimum wage become a living wage? When did it become okay to start a family if you can't support yourself or your family and just expect taxpayers to pay for it?

Had it been controlled for inflation the minimum wage would be around $10.50 today. It was never meant to be a poverty level existence. Contrary to modern political rhetoric it was meant to be exactly what the name implies - a wage that assures a minimum standard of living.

And starting a family is a basic and powerful human drive, not something you can realistically expect a large percentage of any population to avoid because of economic forces.

 

[ponyboy]

Actually it very much is. There are exceptions, of course, but the strongest predictor of future earnings is one's parents' earnings.

But it doesn't have to be. The exceptions are the people who decide that they want more and that they are going to work harder to attain it but like I said before, the majority would rather do nothing and complain about their situation than to expend the energy to change it.

Same for educational attainment. And as the divide between good and bad public schools widens that correlation gets stronger and stronger, because the kids who can least afford college are those who are getting there so unprepared that they have to spend a very expensive semester in remedial courses just to get to the same starting point as their middle class peers.

Life isn't fair. Some people have to work harder for what they have or what they want to attain. Saying that they can't have a better life because of their parents or because of the school they went to is just an excuse.

I could have taken the easy way out and could be scraping by and on government assistance just to make ends meet. I decided that I wanted better and I worked for it. Nobody gave me anything. I paid on student loans for about 15 years.

There are tons of excuses on why someone can't do something but unless they are physically unable it's just that, an excuse.

 

[kymom99]

"Life isn't fair. Some people have to work harder for what they have or what they want to attain. Saying that they can't have a better life because of their parents or because of the school they went to is just an excuse."

I agree totally.

My dad finished high school, was drafted in the army, then worked as a blue collar worker. My mom went to the 8th grade then was a homemaker. They sacrificed to send us to Catholic schools but we paid our own college tuition. My brother and I are teachers and my sister is a nurse. Our other brother works in the kitchen at a hospital and has for over 30 years. He dropped out of high school because he had learning problems and at that time there were few programs for special needs. He could have easily gone on disability but he did not. He owns a condo and walks to work every day because he doesn't drive.

I have a niece who graduated from a state university with a nursing degree and was recently accepted at Duke where she will study to be a Nurse Practitioner.

So maybe it's not about our parents' income, but rather their expectations.

 

[ponyboy]

"Life isn't fair. Some people have to work harder for what they have or what they want to attain. Saying that they can't have a better life because of their parents or because of the school they went to is just an excuse."

I agree totally.

My dad finished high school, was drafted in the army, then worked as a blue collar worker. My mom went to the 8th grade then was a homemaker. They sacrificed to send us to Catholic schools but we paid our own college tuition. My brother and I are teachers and my sister is a nurse. Our other brother works in the kitchen at a hospital and has for over 30 years. He dropped out of high school because he had learning problems and at that time there were few programs for special needs. He could have easily gone on disability but he did not. He owns a condo and walks to work every day because he doesn't drive.

I have a niece who graduated from a state university with a nursing degree and was recently accepted at Duke where she will study to be a Nurse Practitioner.

So maybe it's not about our parents' income, but rather their expectations.

My dad grew up in little town Texas and dropped out of school after the 8th grade so he could work on the farm. My mom was the highly educated one that actually went to high school. My dad worked his way up from job to job and eventually became a manager for a pest control company.

Of their kids I own my own business, one of my sisters is an attorney and the other is a director at a hospital and is about to have her PhD. We all paid our own way and achieved what we have through lots of hard work.

I think my lawyer sister probably worked the hardest through college, she actually took her max hours at one college and was able to take some other classes at another one because she held an A average. So she was doing something crazy like 40 hours a week and still working part time to pay for some of it until she got into law school.

The excuses of why people can't do something because of this or that just don't fly with me. I've had it rough, I've been broke and I've had no where to turn....I've been there. I remember one time my buddy loaned me $30 so we didn't get our electricity turned off. I decided that wasn't where I wanted myself or my family to be so I changed it.

Life isn't a bed of roses. Sometimes it's full of sacrifice, hard times and doing stuff that you don't want to do. How you react in those situations is what makes you what you are. You aren't your parents. You aren't your education. You aren't the stuff that you own. You are whatever you decide to be. It isn't just luck or happenstance that most people become successful in life it's hard work and perseverance.

I've had several people tell me that I'm the hardest working person that they know. It's not because I want to work hard all of the time, it's not because it's lots of fun, it's because that's what I have to do to get what I want and what my wife wants and what my kids want. If I don't work hard then I don't get paid. If I don't get paid then I can't pay the bills, I can't take my kids to Disneyworld, my youngest one can't get that new baseball bat my oldest daughter can't take piano lessons.

I'm not here trying to brag on myself. I'm here to tell everybody that they can do whatever they want but that doesn't mean it's going to come easy. It might mean working two jobs for a while. It might mean studying all night and going to work early the next morning. It might mean that you don't get to go do stuff with your friends or you don't get to be with your family as much as you want to. Those are the kinds of sacrifices that you have to be prepared to make or you can decide to take the easy route and do nothing because doing something is just too hard.

If you're counting on the minimum wage to go up to dig you out of the hole that you're in then you're wasting your time. You'll live paycheck to paycheck for the rest of your life and you'll end up dying without a penny to your name. People like to talk about the American Dream being dead but the truth is, they're just to lazy to get off the couch and go get it.

 

[crisi]

Had it been controlled for inflation the minimum wage would be around $10.50 today. It was never meant to be a poverty level existence. Contrary to modern political rhetoric it was meant to be exactly what the name implies - a wage that assures a minimum standard of living.

And starting a family is a basic and powerful human drive, not something you can realistically expect a large percentage of any population to avoid because of economic forces.

I don't think so: http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/anth484/minwage.html - historical minimum wage tracked against inflation and the poverty line.

 

[FairestOfThemAll37]

I'm all for living wages. I also hope then that with this proposed min. wage increase that I also get a 40% raise. Otherwise, I just took a 40% pay cut and I'm not in favor of that.

It really feels like some people don't seem to think that money is finite. That raising the hourly wage of 3.6 million people (including those below min. earners) has to come out of somebody else's pocket. The government isn't going to stop taking so many taxes because of the increase. And that $3/hr (going by the proposed 10.10 not even the $15) ends up being about $1 billion that businesses will have to recoup.

So chances are a chunk of those 3.6 mil people will lose their jobs to start. Prices will go up which again means unless everybody gets a 40% raise then your/my purchasing power just decreased. So now we're spending less and business just keep cutting.

Businesses are there to make money. Any corporation has a board and stock holders that they have a legal responsibility to. They can't just cut into their profits to cover raising labor costs.

This increase will just take money out of the hands of people in the middle. CEOs pulling down 7 figure bonuses aren't going to absorb that cost. Their getting paid to keep profits up. As long as they do that, they earn their money. And those guys, make sure they earn their money.

There are much more sympathetic people around than me. I work hard and I want to keep my earnings. I will donate time and money to charity as I believe in compassion and helping people who need it. But I'm a capitalist and I don't think the answer to our economic problems are found in a 40% min. wage increase that if effectively just a pay cut for the bulk of the middle class.

 

[ponyboy]

Businesses are there to make money. Any corporation has a board and stock holders that they have a legal responsibility to. They can't just cut into their profits to cover raising labor costs.

That's the main thing that people don't understand.

A business is going to attain X % of profit. If their costs go up then their prices go up to offset.

"Well Walmart makes a billion dollars. Make them pay their workers more!". That's great and all but Walmart is still going to make a billion dollars but their prices will just increase so now everybody that shops there pays more for their stuff. Walmart isn't paying their workers more, you are.

Also, businesses don't pay taxes, their customers do. "Those mean oil companies are making a billion dollars. They need to pay more taxes!" Awesome, because that cost will simply filter down and the next time you go to fill up with gas instead of it being $3.00 per gallon it will be $3.25. So congratulations, you didn't punish big oil by raising their taxes, you just raised your own.

Want to do something that will help everyone? Decrease government spending and get rid of big government. Businesses taxes and fees are ridiculous and those fees are passed down to the consumer which increases the cost of everything. If people could really see how much of their income is spent paying taxes there would be another revolution.

 

[manning]

"Life isn't fair. Some people have to work harder for what they have or what they want to attain. Saying that they can't have a better life because of their parents or because of the school they went to is just an excuse."

I agree totally.

My dad finished high school, was drafted in the army, then worked as a blue collar worker. My mom went to the 8th grade then was a homemaker. They sacrificed to send us to Catholic schools but we paid our own college tuition. My brother and I are teachers and my sister is a nurse. Our other brother works in the kitchen at a hospital and has for over 30 years. He dropped out of high school because he had learning problems and at that time there were few programs for special needs. He could have easily gone on disability but he did not. He owns a condo and walks to work every day because he doesn't drive.

I have a niece who graduated from a state university with a nursing degree and was recently accepted at Duke where she will study to be a Nurse Practitioner.

So maybe it's not about our parents' income, but rather their expectations.

OUCH! A bunch of success stories. What's the common thread? YOU WORK YOUR BUTT OFF !!!

 

[AquaDame]

OUCH! A bunch of success stories. What's the common thread? YOU WORK YOUR BUTT OFF !!!

What about the people who do work their butt off and DON'T succeed? I know it's utterly shocking but it does happen. No one WANTS to be poor or fail in the eyes of their parents. You can't keep blaming the poor for being poor when you yourselves admit that it will be a dark day indeed when the CEOs allow anything to touch their profits. When so many of us want everyone to have the best as long as WE don't have to give up a thing. If we do? Then every man for themselves, I got mine. I'm at least willing to hear this out, look at the data, and not immediately worry about my OWN buying power. I am not so selfish as to think my hard work outdid everyone else's hard work.

More simply put, there is NOT enough money out there for everyone to have the best. But we certainly don't have to let so very few have so much of the wealth that just 1% of our population has 40% of our wealth. Our bottom 80% owns a mere 7%. 80% of Americans are NOT so lazy as that. 1 in 5 children are born into poverty. That is a heckuva lot of bootstraps. So what if I can't buy that new car? Or go to restaurants as much as I used to. So WHAT if I never upgrade my 1600 square foot house or give greedy selfish companies more needless money to buy shoes before I actually need them. If we can vastly improve the lives of millions I think I'm ok with that. We aren't talking about dropping the rest of us into poverty, we're talking about trying to save the millions who are.

 

[angwill]

That's the main thing that people don't understand.

A business is going to attain X % of profit. If their costs go up then their prices go up to offset.

"Well Walmart makes a billion dollars. Make them pay their workers more!". That's great and all but Walmart is still going to make a billion dollars but their prices will just increase so now everybody that shops there pays more for their stuff. Walmart isn't paying their workers more, you are.

Also, businesses don't pay taxes, their customers do. "Those mean oil companies are making a billion dollars. They need to pay more taxes!" Awesome, because that cost will simply filter down and the next time you go to fill up with gas instead of it being $3.00 per gallon it will be $3.25. So congratulations, you didn't punish big oil by raising their taxes, you just raised your own.

Want to do something that will help everyone? Decrease government spending and get rid of big government. Businesses taxes and fees are ridiculous and those fees are passed down to the consumer which increases the cost of everything. If people could really see how much of their income is spent paying taxes there would be another revolution.

Do you honestly think that the majority of the people don't want government to decrease their spending and cut down on big government? They want that as much as they want the big companies to stop hording their profits for those at the top that don't work any harder than those at the bottom of their company. The truth is that until those profits stop going into governments back pockets to write bills that benefit them and protect and increase those profits that's not going to happen. So a lot of society is holding on to raising minimum wage which is the only thing government seems willing to give.