The answer to $15.00 Hour fast food restaurant wages

[aaarcher86]

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The original statement was that food service workers shouldn't make more than police officers or EMTs. They shouldn't. But underpaying police officers is a poor excuse for underpaying other workers. Also, the $12 and $15 pay rates given--is that the starting pay rate? Do they get automatic pay raises and benefits? Minimum wage hasn't gone up in years.

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.

 

[Mom of a great kid]

It's TOTALLY more valuable, and I think that's why it's brought up. People hem and haw about the FF workers getting a living wage but no one does that for the people that deserve it for the work that they're doing.

I haven't seen picketing or posts here that start off with "firefighters, medics, and police should be paid a living wage." THATS why people bring it up. Because I could give a hoot about FF workers getting $15/hr when these people are making less.

Read the posts and you will see that several of us have said policemen and EMTs should make more than $15.00 per hour.

 

[sunshinehighway]

It's TOTALLY more valuable, and I think that's why it's brought up. People hem and haw about the FF workers getting a living wage but no one does that for the people that deserve it for the work that they're doing.

I haven't seen picketing or posts here that start off with "firefighters, medics, and police should be paid a living wage." THATS why people bring it up. Because I could give a hoot about FF workers getting $15/hr when these people are making less.

They are making a living wage.

 

[aaarcher86]

Read the posts and you will see that several of us have said policemen and EMTs should make more than $15.00 per hour.

I have read them (obviously), but no one seems to be battling for them. It's always the FF workers.

 

[aaarcher86]

They are making a living wage.

If $12/hr is a living wage then why is everyone trying to get $15/hr? Why not $10/hr?

After you pay for insurance, you're making less than a min wage job with Medicaid.

 

[Meandnevaeh]

Your daughter is a fast good worker. It's ok to start small. Burger flipper is absolutely what I will call fast food workers, it's what they do, along with deep fat fry operator and cashier. I get so sick of this hyper inflated sense of what people do. Fast food workers are dispensable, require virtually no skill or education, and do not deserve a high level of pay.

I never said I receive bad service, or that am I rude to fast food workers. On the rare occasion that I order fast food I would prefer to order via a kiosk than face to face, particularly if it will eliminate this attitude of "my job at the deep fat fryer is super important and I'm a special snowflake that deserves more than a trained emt who scrapes people up off the side of the road". Anyone who thinks they deserve that much money to work fast food is a yahoo.

Btw, I think fast food is a great first job. It gives kids a chance to learn to follow a schedule, budget a paycheck, work under stress (the lunch rush), manage customer service, etc. But it is not an important job and it is not deserving of a high wage.

While on some aspects I would agree that fast food is an entry level job, having done this type of work for my 25 years in the workforce, while raising my kids and going to school part time, nothing infuriates me more than when people act like it's an easy job.... Working with the public and 1000's of entitled ***holes, it is far from easy. The pressure from owners and upper management to produce more with fewer people, and then do it with a smile as the jerk on the other side treats you like you are trash, or less than a human being for making a mistake-it's ridiculous. Everyone makes mistakes every day, the people on the side of that counter are not robots, they are human beings, and no matter what kind of job they are doing, even when they make a mistake, they should be treated with respect. Until you have donned that apron and worked in their shoes, to really see that it's harder than u might think, be kind, be kind to everyone around you, you have no idea what they are going through.
But I do agree that no way should a fast food employee earn$15.00/hour as a general employee.

Have a good day, sorry for the rant

 

[Mom of a great kid]

I have read them (obviously), but no one seems to be battling for them. It's always the FF workers.

Police officers often do have unions/associations to negotiate raises for them, and sometimes go on strike. If a police officer had not had a raise since July 2009, I would expect him/her to demand higher wages and believe that demand was justified. It is no less justified for minimum wage employees.

 

[Mom of a great kid]

While on some aspects I would agree that fast food is an entry level job, having done this type of work for my 25 years in the workforce, while raising my kids and going to school part time, nothing infuriates me more than when people act like it's an easy job.... Working with the public and 1000's of entitled ***holes, it is far from easy. The pressure from owners and upper management to produce more with fewer people, and then do it with a smile as the jerk on the other side treats you like you are trash, or less than a human being for making a mistake-it's ridiculous. Everyone makes mistakes every day, the people on the side of that counter are not robots, they are human beings, and no matter what kind of job they are doing, even when they make a mistake, they should be treated with respect. Until you have donned that apron and worked in their shoes, to really see that it's harder than u might think, be kind, be kind to everyone around you, you have no idea what they are going through.
But I do agree that no way should a fast food employee earn$15.00/hour as a general employee.

Have a good day, sorry for the rant

 

[Mom of a great kid]

25 years? You not only deserve a raise, you deserve a medal! I'm glad you left a comment here.

 

[Meandnevaeh]

25 years? You not only deserve a raise, you deserve a medal! I'm glad you left a comment here.

Thank you, I know that there are lots of good people out there, and not everyone is an ******, otherwise I wouldn't be able to continue working with the public, I just get so frustrated when I hear those kinds of comments. While I have moved up into the upper management and make a pretty good salary, it's still hard to see all of these employees in my workforce come and go, and watch everything that they deal with on a daily basis. I love my work, and could move on to some other type of office management or accounting, or anything,but it works for me. I've had the flexibility to take off the same day every week if needed for kids dance practices, or every Friday night for football games, or the weekday to help out with the valentines parties at school-whatever I've wanted to do, I've been able to do it.

 

[declansdad]

Another misconception is that higher wages dictate the price of the finished product. They do not. A major point made when I studied marketing was that a product should be priced according to what the market will bear. Executives know this. They know they cannot simply raise prices to offset increased wages. Those wage increases will decrease profits, which is why they fight so hard against them.

The same concept, supply and demand, applies to the price of labour. If you want to use that argument then you have to include the fact that the setting of a minimum wage is price floor and does not match what the market will bear.

 

[aaarcher86]

Police officers often do have unions/associations to negotiate raises for them, and sometimes go on strike. If a police officer had not had a raise since July 2009, I would expect him/her to demand higher wages and believe that demand was justified. It is no less justified for minimum wage employees.

I didn't once offer an example for police officers. Maybe address the workers I did give an example for who aren't unionized.

 

[nj disney family]

They should demand to get paid more? I don't think so. You say you have no problem with any worker trying to make a better living but demanding being paid more is definitely not trying to make a better living. Trying to make a better living would be doing what you can to get out of your minimum wage job, get an education, get skills so that you can make a better living. Demanding it is the easy, lazy way and I don't support that at all.

Not everyone has the resources or ability to follow your mapped out path. I don't think anybody who risks their job and possibly arrest to try to improve their rights, wages, and working conditions is lazy. We are talking about fast food workers right now because of people who want to be treated better organized events nation wide to bring attention to their cause.
United we bargain.
Divided we beg.

 

[Colleen27]

I have read them (obviously), but no one seems to be battling for them. It's always the FF workers.

Because it is hard to unite people behind a cause that only effects some of them. Around here, police make a LOT more than $15/hr - more like $30+, before accounting for benefits. Brand-new EMTs make less but not by much; the company I'm familiar with in my area starts at $14 for someone with little/no experience. And a lot of our area fire departments are still volunteer or on-call, which is hard to break down to a real hourly wage. Obviously all of that is different in different parts of the country. But it is very hard to build support for a national movement when so many of the people you'd be calling on don't have a personal, every-payday interest in the issue.

Besides, it isn't as though anyone is talking about a fast-food specific wage that would leave underpaid emergency workers out in the cold - any bump in the minimum wage has ripples up the rest of the barely-above-minimum economy. So the whole argument that "burger flippers shouldn't make more than EMTs" is illogical on its face.

 

[Hikergirl]

Not everyone has the resources or ability to follow your mapped out path. I don't think anybody who risks their job and possibly arrest to try to improve their rights, wages, and working conditions is lazy. We are talking about fast food workers right now because of people who want to be treated better organized events nation wide to bring attention to their cause.
United we bargain.
Divided we beg.

Meh, no matter how you spin it, its unskilled workers not willing to do what it takes to become skilled workers in order to make more money.

Here's a program in NYC, I'm sure if you google you can find other areas have something.
http://www1.nyc.gov/nyc-resources/s...ent-services-for-public-assistance-recipients

Here's a tuition assistance program
https://www.hesc.ny.gov/pay-for-college/apply-for-financial-aid/nys-tap.html

There are also free or reduced childcare programs childcare available to low income people.

There are plenty of programs out there to help those without the resources to get skills or an education.

 

[Colleen27]

The cost of having employees is expensive. If you pay someone $10 an hour you're actually paying about $14 an hour to have them around. Around here minimum wage is 7.25. You're actually paying over $10 an hour for that employee. I'm a small business owner and I can't afford to pay someone $15 an hour ($21) to answer the phones. What is going to happen is jobs will be eliminated. Small business won't exist.

That's always the prediction but if you look at local jurisdictions that have higher minimums it hasn't played out in practice. The multiplier effect of the additional wages flowing back into the economy as consumer spending more than compensates for the higher costs businesses pay for labor.

 

[declansdad]

Don't forget the fact that they have to deal with people screaming at them because their ice cream doesn't have enough swirls or their burger is missing a pickle. There's also the people who look at them like they're dirt, not worthy of respect...

Everyone should be treated with respect but that doesn't mean everyone should make a minimum of $15 per hour.

 

[Mizzoufan]

 

[Gumbo4x4]

Would/should this minimum wage or living wage increase be based on location? The 15 an hour paid in some locations would go very, very far in others.

Not a lie - just 3 days ago I interviewed a young man whose goal was to work up to "at least $15 per hour" so he & his girlfriend could have a 2nd kid and she wouldn't need to work anymore (his words).

While I think he's WAY over ambitious about how far $15/hour goes, it's definitely not necessary as a minimum wage in my area.

 

[Mom of a great kid]

The same concept, supply and demand, applies to the price of labour. If you want to use that argument then you have to include the fact that the setting of a minimum wage is price floor and does not match what the market will bear.

Establishing a minimum wage is supposed to ensure that all workers are making enough money to live on, given the cost of living.