The answer to $15.00 Hour fast food restaurant wages

[Mkrop]

Is it really out of whack though? The truth is jobs like that (emt, er tech, cna)usually require minimal training for certification and there's a large pool to fill the positions. Shouldn't those people just find a better profession? Isn't that what posters are saying about other low paying jobs?
Personally I think it illustrates the larger problem. While I don't think $15 min wage across the board is feasible, there does need to be an increase and col in some area does justify $15.
Those. (emt, cna,...) types of jobs are important and we should want good, hard working people doing them. People should be able to support themselves with those types of jobs.
It'ss easy to just focus on fast food workers and say "yeah a burger flipper shouldn't make $15/hour" but when you start looking at other low paying jobs it's a little harder to say that.

My life may be in the hands of that EMT etc. I much rather get behind them getting a pay increase than fast food workers.

 

[wvjules]

Minimum wage is not supposed to be a livable wage. I don't think it was ever meant to be that either. It is low wages for unskilled entry level workers. A place to start. Not a place meant to support a family

Who determined that $15 was "livable" anyway?

 

[sunshinehighway]

My life may be in the hands of that EMT etc. I much rather get behind them getting a pay increase than fast food workers.

Why does it have to be one or the other though? Instead of putting one group against another, why not look at the whole picture and see there is too big of a wage gap?

 

[aaarcher86]

.
So is he part of a union now, like so many other nurses?

No. The hospital doesn't have a union. None of the hospitals he's worked at have, but can't speak for all of them.

 

[lsyorke]

I can't speak for everyone but my husband left his ambulance job after 3 years still making less than $12/hr. The hospital techs do get more per hour for certain certifications and experience. A tech at my husbands current hospital on the med surg floor makes barely over $12/he as an EMT with some other certifications he got independently and 5ish years experience because they didn't count the time he worked at the ambulance place. The medics there make an extra $1.50 or so an hour than EMTs.

You get evaluated for pay raises. The $.25 yearly possible raise at the ambulance company was a joke. There's benefits and they're expensive.

EMT's have always been paid lousy and private ambulance services have always paid a low wage. EMT was designed for volunteer rescue squads(way back when it was started) and has never been presented as a long lasting career path. A certified medical assistant will make more than a EMT, especially in a hospital situation. I would encourage your husband to look into additional education, ie nursing, paramedic, if he want's to continue to find employment in the medical field. My "certified"medical assistants in my office make more than $12/hour to start and this is a private practice.

 

[aaarcher86]

Is it really out of whack though? The truth is jobs like that (emt, er tech, cna)usually require minimal training for certification and there's a large pool to fill the positions. Shouldn't those people just find a better profession? Isn't that what posters are saying about other low paying jobs?
Personally I think it illustrates the larger problem. While I don't think $15 min wage across the board is feasible, there does need to be an increase and col in some area does justify $15.
Those. (emt, cna,...) types of jobs are important and we should want good, hard working people doing them. People should be able to support themselves with those types of jobs.
It'ss easy to just focus on fast food workers and say "yeah a burger flipper shouldn't make $15/hour" but when you start looking at other low paying jobs it's a little harder to say that.

I don't consider EMT or medic training to be minimal or easy, personally. And considering you have to have continuing education throughout the career I don't really consider it on the same level. There's just no comparison at all, IMO.

Those techs are the ones doing a lot of the patient care. And hell, in the ER, saving lives. But yes, I wouldn't consider a tech position something someone should make a career out of either, but the ambulance drivers that are EMTs and Medics should absolutely be paid much, much higher.

If we are going to make jobs that shouldn't be careers a higher pay level I'm going for the EMTs, techs, etc. Talk to me about FF after that, but for darn sure not before.

 

[aaarcher86]

EMT's have always been paid lousy and private ambulance services have always paid a low wage. EMT was designed for volunteer rescue squads(way back when it was started) and has never been presented as a long lasting career path. A certified medical assistant will make more than a EMT, especially in a hospital situation. I would encourage your husband to look into additional education, ie nursing, paramedic, if he want's to continue to find employment in the medical field. My "certified"medical assistants in my office make more than $12/hour to start and this is a private practice.

Read on, friend. BTDT. Being a medic is a minimal increase - wouldn't have been worth the schooling.

 

[Colleen27]

ok, lets do it this way, there is a number called S an P earnings which is a measure of profits of all San P companies, so it is broad range. If we go back to 2007, which was a pre crash year and a very good earnings year and when they last set the minimum wage, profits have increased 33% but the min wage has increased zero. Do you have an excuse for workers not getting a part of the success.

And if you look at the overall picture, it is worse than that. Inflation-adjusted wages for most workers have declined since 2007. So it isn't just a minimum wage issue - it is high profits and zero or negative wage growth across the economy.

During that time the cost of gas skyrocketted which affects all of those businesses.

And when they went back down, did prices follow? Or did profits rise because consumers were now accepting of higher prices which allowed companies to pad their profit margins?

 

[Christine]

I'm asking why you're ok with taking money out of the CEO's pocket, or out of the shareholder's pockets, to pay someone more, but you're not willing to take it out of your own?

You're talking greed. EVERYONE wants more money for what they do.
If your boss came up to you and said "Christine, we're giving you a raise", would you turn it down? No, I don't think so.
If the boss said "Christine, you're getting a raise. Bob (your coworker) isn't", would you turn down your raise because it's not "fair" to Bob? Would you offer to split your raise with Bob? No, I don't think so.

It's easy to play "share the money" when it's not your money, isn't it?

I wouldn't just take money out of any CEO's pocket. But I do read and watch the news. Corporations are making record profits. More than they ever have. Workers wages have stagnated and the safety net of the minimum wage no longer keeps up with inflation. Corporations hire lobbyists to ensure that does not happen. Workers do not have a means to defend themselves anymore. That's where I think it's wrong. Corporations that make billions of dollars and use all of the resources and loopholes available to them to make sky high profits owe that same country something. Only in the last 30 years have they been able to mess with market as much as the do. They have become almost totally deregulated when it comes to employee welfare. They have worked to strip workers of their powers, they have worked to gut pay, all in the name of profit. I do not disagree with profit or greed. It is human nature and it's what makes people want to create industries, but it cannot be unbridled and unregulated.

The wage disparity we have is shameful. That's why minimum wage got put in place in the first place. To protect the workers. It still needs to stay in place but it does need to be tied to inflation. Period. Why we can no longer even do that now, I don't know.

As far as my wages, I still do not get where you are going with that. My salary has nothing to do with wage disparity between corporate and myself, nor does it have anything to do with what others make who do the same job as me. How is that relevant to the minimum wage discussion? Just because I want a lesser wage disparity between CEOs and the lowest worker doesn't mean that I need "fairness" in all areas of my world. That just doesn't even make sense to me.

 

[Christine]

Minimum wage is not supposed to be a livable wage. I don't think it was ever meant to be that either. It is low wages for unskilled entry level workers. A place to start. Not a place meant to support a family

Who determined that $15 was "livable" anyway?

I agree that those jobs were never meant to make a living at. Historically, except maybe in really small towns, these were the jobs teenagers took. I now in the DC metro area, $15 per hour is not livable (and that's considering it's fulltime). I know because my daughter used to make that much and the only living she could do was with her parents.

 

[Colleen27]

I'm asking why you're ok with taking money out of the CEO's pocket, or out of the shareholder's pockets, to pay someone more, but you're not willing to take it out of your own?

I think for most of us, at least here on the DIS, we know that some of the money will be coming out of our own pockets. How many here have retirement funds in the stock market? I'd guess it is a majority, if not all of us. But the thing is, I'm willing to sacrifice a bit of right-now return for the longer term good of our economy as a whole. Because we cannot keep going on the current trajectory. We're rapidly becoming a consumer economy with no consumers, and we can only mask that with easy credit for so long before it all comes crumbling down.

 

[FairestOfThemAll37]

Minimum wage is not supposed to be a livable wage. I don't think it was ever meant to be that either. It is low wages for unskilled entry level workers. A place to start. Not a place meant to support a family

Who determined that $15 was "livable" anyway?

Actually, minimum wage was intended to be exactly that, a living wage.

I don't know how or when the myth was born that it was only for teenagers as a stepping stone, but it has certainly become an American mantra.

Maybe today it shouldn't be a living wage? I don't really know. There's a lot of broken that I don't have the skills to suggest how to fix. But to say it was never intended as a living wage is absolutely false.

 

[aaarcher86]

Actually, minimum wage was intended to be exactly that, a living wage.

I don't know how or when the myth was born that it was only for teenagers as a stepping stone, but it has certainly become an American mantra.

Maybe today it shouldn't be a living wage? I don't really know. There's a lot of broken that I don't have the skills to suggest how to fix. But to say it was never intended as a living wage is absolutely false.

I'm too lazy to research it, but I'm fairly sure minimum wage was enacted to make sure workers were paid fairly for he job they were doing... Not to make sure all jobs were offering wages to live off of.

 

[Christine]

Actually, minimum wage was intended to be exactly that, a living wage.

I don't know how or when the myth was born that it was only for teenagers as a stepping stone, but it has certainly become an American mantra.

Maybe today it shouldn't be a living wage? I don't really know. There's a lot of broken that I don't have the skills to suggest how to fix. But to say it was never intended as a living wage is absolutely false.

Interesting, I did not know that! Found this:

In his 1933 address following the passage of the National Industrial Recovery Act, President Franklin D. Roosevelt noted that “no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country.”

“By ‘business’ I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level — I mean the wages of decent living,” he stated.

 

[wvjules]

ok so I googled and it said it says

"The purpose of the minimum wagewas to stabilize the post-depression economy and protect the workers in the labor force. The minimum wage was designed to create a minimum standard of living to protect the health and well-being of employees."

So I guess technically you are correct. However I'm sure our definition of minimum standard of living is quite different.

 

[aaarcher86]

ok so I googled and it said it says

"The purpose of the minimum wagewas to stabilize the post-depression economy and protect the workers in the labor force. The minimum wage was designed to create a minimum standard of living to protect the health and well-being of employees."

So I guess technically you are correct. However I'm sure our definition of minimum standard of living is quite different.

Probably.

I also think it's a safe assumption that establishing min standard of living for factory workers making $6 a week is a much different can of worms than what we are looking today.

 

[kamik86]

Interesting, I did not know that! Found this:

In his 1933 address following the passage of the National Industrial Recovery Act, President Franklin D. Roosevelt noted that “no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country.”

“By ‘business’ I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level — I mean the wages of decent living,” he stated.

Ok but now what is a liveable wage?

Does a livable wage have to be one that allows you to live on your own or can it require you have to have a roommate to be comfortable? Does it require you to be able to raise children with a spouse? Without a spouse?

What some people find liveable given their situation others won't. So are we now paying people based on what they need and not what the company feels the skills they bring are worth?

 

[Christine]

Ok but now what is a liveable wage?

Does a livable wage have to be one that allows you to live on your own or can it require you have to have a roommate to be comfortable? Does it require you to be able to raise children with a spouse? Without a spouse?

What some people find liveable given their situation others won't. So are we now paying people based on what they need and not what the company feels the skills they bring are worth?

Well, on some of the stuff I was reading to find the FDR quote, it seemed to indicate that the amount was for an individual and not for one individual to raise a non-working family of 4.

 

[Colleen27]

Actually, minimum wage was intended to be exactly that, a living wage.

Exactly. Teddy Roosevelt, writing in 1912:

"But we hold with Lincoln that labor deserves higher consideration than capital. Therefore we hold that labor has a right to the means of life - that there must be a living wage."

And speaking to a party conference that same year:

"We stand for a living wage. Wages are subnormal if they fail to provide a living for those who devote their time and energy to industrial occupations. The monetary equivalent of a living wage varies according to local conditions, but must include enough to secure the elements of a normal standard of living--a standard high enough to make morality possible, to provide for education and recreation, to care for immature members of the family, to maintain the family during periods of sickness, and to permit of reasonable saving for old age."

No where in there does it say "The minimum wage shall be a guarantee that our teenagers aren't sacrificing their study time and date nights for too little value, and to ensure they can work enough hours to afford gas and movie tickets." The whole idea that the minimum wage was designed for teens is laughable - where would the political will to implement a minimum wage come from, if it was only intended to effect those with no obligations or responsibilities of their own?

 

[descovy]

Ok but now what is a liveable wage?

Does a livable wage have to be one that allows you to live on your own or can it require you have to have a roommate to be comfortable? Does it require you to be able to raise children with a spouse? Without a spouse?

What some people find liveable given their situation others won't. So are we now paying people based on what they need and not what the company feels the skills they bring are worth?

Let's put it this way...

Livable wage should be when a single person working at the grocery store full time won't need food stamps to buy her own groceries.

Her job should pay enough for her to eat instead of asking the tax payers to help via food stamps