The answer to $15.00 Hour fast food restaurant wages

[mefordis]

Exactly, I'll pay you $15 per hour but imonly going to work you 20HPW

But then service would fail miserably and they would lose customers and sales. It would backfire.

 

[mefordis]

Also, whenever people see executives receiving high pay they applaud and say they deserve it, yet thumbs down on tossing a few dollars the way of the people who have to sweat it out at the fryers for 8 hours a day. I don't really understand that mentality.

 

[Patch'sD]

My question would be about semi skilled worker now making $15 per hour. People working in Clerical positions and the like. Will they be happy in their positions, knowing that an unskilled entry level worker now makes as much as them. These positions will then have to be raised. It is difficult to project what will happen to a very weak economy if all of sudden wage growth is forced on it. The economy should be setting salaries not the federal government. The federal poverty level for a family of four is about $ 25,000. A $15 per hour wage insures that no one working full time would be under $30,000. Get ready for the Poverty level to go over $30,000 as prices rise to compensate for the more expensive workforce, inflation will be back with a vengeance

 

[Tiggeroo]

Perhaps a 2 tiered minimum wage. A lower wage could be set for younger workers and true entry level employees with a period of time in which it would be required to bring the wage up to the 15. an hour mark. The problem is we have created a large service economy that pays very poorly while eliminating most manufacturing jobs or jobs comparable. There needs to be a living wage for people trapped in what we might consider low skilled jobs. People who truly will not be able to become a highly skilled technical worker or obtain a college degree or people whose jobs are being outsourced for some reason or are struggling with entry back in the work force because of a change in market needs or perhaps their age. I mean hard working individuals who are responsible and are always willing to go the extra mile yet are trapped in these jobs. I can understand ways to exempt very small employers. But companies are growing their profits solely by not incrementally increasing workers' pay. I would pay an extra buck for my burger but that wouldn't solve the problem. If you raise burgers a buck the company will see it as profits they don't want to part with. They would still fight higher wages. Another nasty trick these companies do is to take talented, hard working staff who really need to improve their lives and label them some sort of manager. They then salary them and work them so many hours their hourly wage is terrible. Those of you are living fairly comfortable lives and had the ability to advance a bit and don't understand how corporate america is treating workers need to take a closer look. The problem is not coming from small mom and pop businesses who tend to pay their employees as much as they can afford and will meet payroll before paying themselves. It is coming from where CEO's make many, many times more then the lowest worker and are hired primarily for their skill at making share holders very wealthy. As a small business owner I understand the problem that some have had with unions. But I also understand why they were put in place. As we created a more healthy middle class we didn't feel the need for them but unfortunately I think we do now. One of the reasons we tolerate the crazy inequalities is that it allows us to continue working so hard, every day. We do this partly because we believe in the American dream. In order to believe there needs to be some who truly succeed at it and are doing a good deal better than we are.

 

[aaarcher86]

Currently eating a Big Mac.

Can confirm - not $1.

 

[Cantw8]

$15 an hour to flip burgers is ridiculous.

 

[PlainJane]

I have not read the whole thread.......

I've worked retail. I made slightly more than that state's minimum wage. For the work I did I did not feel like I "deserved" more. I knew that I had to make my way up the professional ranks to make more money, and I was fine with that. I was working retail as a stepping stone.

What did bother me was they tended to hire tons of people and no one got to work a decent amount of hours unless they were management. I learned the evils of just in time staffing, with on call shifts that were almost never used. Also, never knowing if you were going to get sent home early was frustrating.

 

[manning]

My wife has a lazy nephew who can work if he applied himself. He hit on her for $2,000. (his pattern) She gave it to him but said to him 'never again, from now on you sink or swim.'

I don't work fast food but I do have a job that only requires a HS diploma. Yep, I didn't go to college. A decision I have regretted all my life because the job I have now is what I am basically qualified for. I think I am more capable than my education indicates but I digress....
Saying all that, there is NO way my job should pay $15 an hour. It's a menial job and makes menial job money. If I want to make more money then I know I need to get a degree. Or network a little more. It is what it is.

Go and get more education. There are good paying jobs out there that don't need college. Don't give up on yourself. I only have 2 yrs college but did well economically. I found a niche in the company and filled it. Out of 15,000 plus people I was the only one who knew how to do my job. And it was an important job. When I retired there still wasn't anyone knew it. Their loss.

 

[manning]

I understand Capitalism now. I also understand the damage being done to our country by unchecked greed and total lack of concern for others. A poster on this thread complained that her EMT husband, after 3 years was still making less than $12.00 per hour. She didn't want fast food workers making more than he does. But if fast food workers get that $15.00 minimum wage, her husband will get a raise. His employer will have to pay him more, because he can threaten to quit and get a fast food job. All the other EMTs can do the same. Since the employer needs EMTs, he will have to pay them what they're worth. I'm not quoting anyone else or speculating--I've actually been through this scenario, more than once. Like someone else said, a rising tide lifts everyone. The billionaires and Fox news don't want you to know that--they want you to believe the catastrophizing, doom and gloom they are prophesying, but this country did just fine in the fifties with unions, pensions and a living wage. It can do so again, if we all think for ourselves.

Well, not quite.

 

[manning]

Have you been to Texas lately? I live in the DFW metroplex and the amount of people moving here from California (well not just California either) is crazy. The amount of companies moving here is crazy.

You have to wonder why they are moving out of California

 

[manning]

We live under capitalism. It's competitive. The harder you work to improve yourself the better your chances for advancement. Not guaranteed, but better.

Now, we can have the government regulate this. You can only do this or that, charge this or that. That's socialism. Sound familiar?

How well has this worked? Look at Cuba, Russia, Valenzuela, etc. Aren't doing so well, are they?

Socialism almost brought down England Until Thatcher came along. Her big question is What do we do when we run out of the people's money? Taxing question isn't it?
My wife's uncle came here from Poland for a visit when it was communist. We took him Christmas shopping. He looked around the store in amazement. He said here you wait in line to pay, in Poland they wait in line for the shelves to be stocked.

Many say it is not fair. The shocking reality is as a whole there isn't many things fair in life.

Like it or not it is the survival of the fittest. Been going on since the beginning of mankind.

 

[Planogirl]

You have to wonder why they are moving out of California

It was housing and other costs. The cost of living in California is insane compared to Texas.

 

[Planogirl]

We live under capitalism. It's competitive. The harder you work to improve yourself the better your chances for advancement. Not guaranteed, but better.

Now, we can have the government regulate this. You can only do this or that, charge this or that. That's socialism. Sound familiar?

How well has this worked? Look at Cuba, Russia, Valenzuela, etc. Aren't doing so well, are they?

Socialism almost brought down England Until Thatcher came along. Her big question is What do we do when we run out of the people's money? Taxing question isn't it?
My wife's uncle came here from Poland for a visit when it was communist. We took him Christmas shopping. He looked around the store in amazement. He said here you wait in line to pay, in Poland they wait in line for the shelves to be stocked.

Many say it is not fair. The shocking reality is as a whole there isn't many things fair in life.

Like it or not it is the survival of the fittest. Been going on since the beginning of mankind.

There are many European countries doing quite well and they have more socialist tendencies. I'm not saying that I care for too much socialism but it doesn't seem to hurt all nations to the degree of others.

I dislike the wage disparity and clear indications that the middle class is shrinking. That would truly leave the poor and the rich. I don't think that we want that either.

 

[kamik86]

The cashier represents the fewest number of employees. Eliminating the cashier position in favor of automated ordering and payment system still leaves in place the majority of jobs within the restaurant. this means actual humans are keeping the place clean, prepping the food, making the meals, and of course the managers overseeing everything.

Let's not overlook the jobs that WILL be created if these establishments replace cashiers with automated ordering - people need to program and maintain these computers, right? This is not an entry level fast food employee, however, it does create jobs elsewhere that would not have existed otherwise.

Then there won't be enough qualified people to fill those programming jobs and they will be sent oversees. Right now my company is having trouble filling our their positions. Great for us workers as individuals as most of us have seen some GREAT raises in the last year (my salary went up 10K from this time last year, which did include a promotion but that was also do to all the new work we had) However I know its worrying management as we won a few big contracts all at once and are now having trouble keeping them all staffed. If the people working the minimum wage jobs were qualified to work these jobs I think they would be doing so already.

But then service would fail miserably and they would lose customers and sales. It would backfire.

They are already doing this but most of the upper management doesn't see or care. Just like people complain here about how disney service is getting worse but keep going since people keep shopping at the stores the stores aren't going to fix the service.

In my area their are so few stores and they all staff horribly so if you need stuff you are forced to deal with it, or you can order online for the few things that you can do that with. Only other option is drive an hour and 1/2 to a city nearby, which we do for clothes and stuff like that. However groceries? We go in knowing we will use the self checkouts and probably not deal with an employee the entire time.

The other things the stores do is to drop all the hours of most workers and increase the hours of the salaried people (one of the salaried managers at my husband's job seems to ALWAYS be there. Whenever he is working, whenever we go in to shop, etc. They do also like to have more workers then they really need and give them all low hours. They can pay much less in benefits that way and have more people to try to call in if they need to. So yes they rather have 20 employees that all work 20 hours a week instead of 10 employees that work 40 hours a week.

To pay them all $15 an hour the store would go to more salaried positions at just a bit above that and make them work 45-50 hour weeks. Then they would cut the employees even more to the BARE minimum they think they can get away with and just yell at employees more when they don't finish the insane amount expected of them fast enough (which they already do). Then raise prices claiming its because of the wage hike (but they would raise them more then really needed and blame the raise of the minimum wage).

Examples:
my husband's store doesn't have anyone in electronics before 9 most of the time. People who are supposed to be stocking shelves have to cover electronics for that hour if anyone comes in. Its luck of the draw if that person knows anything about that department.

There is one cashier on all morning. when they go on break the manager has to cover.
Later in the day their are two.

If someone calls out they will no longer call people in. They still have to pay sick time so the managers lose their bonus if they do this too often since you end up double paying for that shift. Instead they make everyone else do twice the work or just leave things for the next group until someone happens to manage to get to it because its slow enough.

This is still probably the store with the best service of any non-boutique type store in our area... way better then its direct competitors. So it still does business and will always continue to.


mefordis, let me guess you live in a larger city? I ask because you say $15 is still peanuts, but for many smaller town areas it isn't that is actually a pretty high wage. You assume that if companies have poor service people will shop at other places without thinking that in many places stores practically have a monopoly unless customers are willing to take the much larger inconvenience of driving much further to a store. Example my parents live in a small city (it is technically a city but is smaller then many towns I have been to). The nearest mall is 45 min away and it has a Target, a Movie theatre, a Sears, and that is about it. Macy's and Best Buy recently closed. There is a Walmart in the city and another in a nearby city about 50 min away. Without driving for over an hour that covers all non strictly grocery store shopping options. As long as Walmarts service doesn't get so bad to negate the extra hour of driving required to get to Target people will shop there.

 

[FairestOfThemAll37]

We live under capitalism. It's competitive. The harder you work to improve yourself the better your chances for advancement. Not guaranteed, but better.

Now, we can have the government regulate this. You can only do this or that, charge this or that. That's socialism. Sound familiar?

How well has this worked? Look at Cuba, Russia, Valenzuela, etc. Aren't doing so well, are they?

Socialism almost brought down England Until Thatcher came along. Her big question is What do we do when we run out of the people's money? Taxing question isn't it?
My wife's uncle came here from Poland for a visit when it was communist. We took him Christmas shopping. He looked around the store in amazement. He said here you wait in line to pay, in Poland they wait in line for the shelves to be stocked.

Many say it is not fair. The shocking reality is as a whole there isn't many things fair in life.

Like it or not it is the survival of the fittest. Been going on since the beginning of mankind.

The government is already involved. They step in and bailout the banks and Wall Street in the name of the economy. They've granted corporations personhood when it suits them yet they have tax breaks and loopholes that working people just don't have.

I'm by no means a socialist, but if we're honest the government has already regulated in favor of businesses so that it can't fail.

 

[Christine]

The government is already involved. They step in and bailout the banks and Wall Street in the name of the economy. They've granted corporations personhood when it suits them yet they have tax breaks and loopholes that working people just don't have.

I'm by no means a socialist, but if we're honest the government has already regulated in favor of businesses so that it can't fail.

Not only, not fail, but it has given them the ability to take advantage of every "good" part of the system out there, with no penalty and no requirement to pay back into society.

 

[Colleen27]

You don't need robots to decrease the number of workers...E.G. automated ordering and payment. There are ways to cut costs...most include jobs and hours.

And those things started happening when minimum wage was $5.15, so I don't think it can be laid at the feet of increases that are, at this point, just talk. Heck, look at Chili's - they're using tablet-based ordering and payment systems to increase the number of tables they can assign to each server, even though the staff being reduced by that tech is paid the $2.15 tipped minimum wage. If the tech is available and affordable, companies will use it to reduce staffing regardless of the wage scale.

It has nothing to do with keeping others down. I seriously doubt, that's anyone's intention.

Would there be a ripple effect and all wages imcrease? It's possible, but prices would too....and the cost of living. So, it would be a wash in that scenario.

I don't think it is anyone's conscious motivation, but I do think it is human nature not to want to feel like "the bottom" and subconsciously that's a powerful force that causes those making just above minimum to denigrate efforts for minimum-wage workers to organize to push for better wages. And I think this is an area where a lot of people don't realize how influenced their opinions are by common narratives not rooted in fact, but which make compelling stories (ie "people on assistance will reduce their hours/quit their jobs if minimum wage goes up"). We're raised on the idea, in this country, that wealth = merit and poverty = moral/intellectual deficiency so it is hard to talk about why wages at the bottom of the scale need to rise at least quickly enough to keep pace with changes in the cost of living. Because we naturally shift the conversation to "If they want to eat/pay the rent, they need to better themselves." We have a very hard time stepping back to see it as a big-picture, whole economy issue.

And the evidence doesn't support the idea that it would be a wash. There's not a 1-to-1 relationship between labor costs and consumer pricing. Some of the higher cost of doing business is made up in higher business volumes, without need to increase prices, and yes, some of it does come out of profits because there's a limit to how much businesses can increase prices without upsetting consumers. Current and historical evidence shows that higher wages at the bottom of the scale boost spending, business activity, and job growth. Those benefits more than offset the smaller net effect on pricing.

 

[Colleen27]

My question would be about semi skilled worker now making $15 per hour. People working in Clerical positions and the like. Will they be happy in their positions, knowing that an unskilled entry level worker now makes as much as them. These positions will then have to be raised. It is difficult to project what will happen to a very weak economy if all of sudden wage growth is forced on it. The economy should be setting salaries not the federal government. The federal poverty level for a family of four is about $ 25,000. A $15 per hour wage insures that no one working full time would be under $30,000. Get ready for the Poverty level to go over $30,000 as prices rise to compensate for the more expensive workforce, inflation will be back with a vengeance

I don't think it is that difficult. The cities with the highest (and recently increased) minimum wages are among the national leaders in job growth. Meanwhile in the Rust Belt, where minimum wage remains low and stagnant, we're still not seeing recovery. Why? Because the only way employers hire is if they have a consumer for their product or service. And when people have no money to spend, they're not consuming.

Go and get more education. There are good paying jobs out there that don't need college. Don't give up on yourself. I only have 2 yrs college but did well economically. I found a niche in the company and filled it. Out of 15,000 plus people I was the only one who knew how to do my job. And it was an important job. When I retired there still wasn't anyone knew it. Their loss.

That doesn't solve the issue that 40% (and growing) of American jobs pay less than $15. It isn't merely an individual issue at this point.

There are many European countries doing quite well and they have more socialist tendencies. I'm not saying that I care for too much socialism but it doesn't seem to hurt all nations to the degree of others.

I dislike the wage disparity and clear indications that the middle class is shrinking. That would truly leave the poor and the rich. I don't think that we want that either.

Exactly. And that should be more alarming than it is because we are not a manufacturing country any more. We can't look to foreign markets to solve our problems via exports. The only way we have a strong economy in this country is to have a strong middle class with money to spend, because it is spending - not making - that keeps things going.

 

[kamik86]

And the evidence doesn't support the idea that it would be a wash. There's not a 1-to-1 relationship between labor costs and consumer pricing. Some of the higher cost of doing business is made up in higher business volumes, without need to increase prices, and yes, some of it does come out of profits because there's a limit to how much businesses can increase prices without upsetting consumers. Current and historical evidence shows that higher wages at the bottom of the scale boost spending, business activity, and job growth. Those benefits more than offset the smaller net effect on pricing.

I think the reason it will be "a wash" is that someone is always going to be on the bottom and not be able to afford what most people can. That person will always feel poor. Maybe reducing the number of people that need to be on the bottom by finding ways to stimulate growth in jobs that aren't unskilled and the number of people that qualify for them is a better path. Besides healthcare that is broken, there are a number of safety nets to assure that that everyone has food and shelter. Add healthcare to that and I'm not sure that an adult that is working a minimum wage job should be able to afford much more in the way of comforts as it provides no incentive to better themselves.

I have mentioned my husband on here but he is actually an example of this. He has been offered higher paying positions before and turned them down because he would have to work more nights and weekends it would be more stressful and he just doesn't want to do it for what he considers not enough extra money to be worth it. He isn't driven to do more just for the sake of being able to do more and because he can live quite comfortably due to what I make won't ever move up. You don't want the safety net to be high enough that too many people feel that way, you need people to strive to achieve more for a country and economy to produce.

 

[Patch'sD]

The government is already involved. They step in and bailout the banks and Wall Street in the name of the economy. They've granted corporations personhood when it suits them yet they have tax breaks and loopholes that working people just don't have.

I'm by no means a socialist, but if we're honest the government has already regulated in favor of businesses so that it can't fail.

The bailout you talk about was not only for Wall Street, but the automakers, Government Backed Mortgage lenders Fannie and Freddie MAC, and a few more. The bailout so far has made $ 69 Billion for the Federal Government. So all Money has been paid back and then some.

And while your at it, take a look how it all started. Under Bill Clinton, the then HUD Secretary, Andrew Cuomo lessened the criteria for obtaining a mortgage making them more of a risk. The banks getting less of the mortgage market decided to the same. Both the banks and the Government Fannie and Freddie sold the Mortgage backed Securities. Investors bought those securities getting a piece of the interest paid by the homeowners. A majority of those who bought the Securities also took out an insurance policy from companies like AIG to protect their investment. Under the Bush Administration the mortgage criteria was further lessened. Housing market collapses, the assets that backed the mortgage became toxic, Securities became worthless, and AIG owed a lot of money. Both the Government and Wall Street had a big part in the failure. If there was no bailout we would all be selling Apples on Street Corners