Fast Food workers declare minimum wage "unlivable"

Let's bring these numbers to a logical conclusion. Hack out what you can, multiple the wage by two and make both parents work; and what do we end up with? I'm kind of shocked you thought $750 was too high. I agree you can't live in Manhattan for that; but I figured even the worst sh**tholes in Atlanta ran about $750 for an apartment. We do agree the family needs food, utilities, and health insurance right? Are we going with just basic bus/train service or assuming the minimum wage family is driving a beater car to work?

1. Rent. Maybe $550 for a small apartment
2. Utilities. $150 for electric. $30 for water. $30 for trash removal. $50 for a phone that can only call 911 and make local calls. $200 for heat in the winter (gas or oil).
3. Medical & dental for wife, husband, one kid: $400 for those walk-in clinics and they stiff the hospital for major emergencies
4. Food: about $200 a week (never eating out, 21 meals a week for 3 people)
5. Clothing for work, home, and for the kid for school. About $100 a month or so.
6. $50 a month for pharmacy and co-pay for medical visits.
7. $10 a month for a cheap TV and cheap computer at Walmart on a credit card, and maybe $40 a month for the cheapest service from a cable company (internet included).

The new one comes to $2,400. I hacked out half of the stuff. Minimum wage is $7.50 (or at least that is what Google is saying). So multiply by two for the husband and wife and you have $15 an hour. I will assume they work 180 hours a month so $2,700 a month before taxes. Low as heck tax bracket so yank out 15% for state, fed, social security, medicare, etc. Take home is $2,295 which is a hair less than the new expenses. If the wife or husband cannot seem to find a job; this family is beyond screwed. Yeah - looking at these numbers I really do feel minimum wage needs to be double what it is right now.

 

Basically yes. If he/she does a sloppy job and you get a near raw burger. Chances are they won't take the job as seriously as someone who is being paid a higher rate.

 

Agreed. I have never gotten out of Fuddruckers for less than about $15 for lunch.

 

As I've said in this thread already, you get what you pay for. pay miniumum wages and you get minimum wage work, including all the screw ups that can occur.

 

That is the Socialist way, to find a small percentage of people whining, patronize them so they think they are victims of some greater evil force (in this case big business) then propose regulatory monetary burdens on those businesses while deftly inserting themselves as a middle-man in the cash flow.

 

Decisions like "getting stuck in an area where the rent is expensive and not having the money to completely uproot their lives"? Decisions like "picking a college course for which the demand suddenly dropped off"? Decisions like "spending half their youth in a dead-end high school"? Yeah, there are people who make legitimately bad decisions, who (*)(*)(*)(*) up their lives, and then don't understand how things could have gone wrong. They exist. But to show such utter ignorance, to assume, "I did okay, why aren't you doing okay?"... It's ridiculous.

 

No but, I don't want it resembling a hocky puck like they do now with the new 'safer' regulations.

 

Yup. Its always "somebody else's fault, and I can't change things anyway."

"Now give me free stuff !"

 

Based on inflation, we should have $10.78 minimum wage.

Scare tactic that is not true.

I see you jump up to defend a minimum wage of $7.25 but a $5,700 per hour doesn't bother you.

Yes, it is about class warfare and you are on the wrong side.

What "market" forces. Do you mean the buyers market for workers? I do understand that you do not care about people and defend the corporations.

Thank god, that is not me!

 

For work.​

 

Well it seems what they pay for a minimum skill worker is working just fine.

Can you tell the difference between a fast food hamburger made by someone making min. wage vs. made by someone making $75K a year ?

Never.

 

Okay, so if we have a person who has his entire livelihood stuck in New York City, including his job, his home, all of his earthly possessions, and he doesn't have enough money to break even each month. What's your advice to that person?

You'll notice I made it very clear:

I was specifically addressing the OP's notion that "I'm fine, therefore why isn't everyone else" - a crass overgeneralization based on a sample size of one. And then, immediately, I'm met with the same overgeneralization by more right-wingers who just don't understand why it's wrong.

 

I do okay because I didn't pop out kids in my teenage years and I don't expect a lifestyle of luxury, and I don't expect either of those until I find a better paying job where I can start a family fund.

I understand some parents in their 30's and 40's lose everything when they get laid off and have to find minimum wage work, but the ones that are my age have no excuse. If young adults can't afford a family in the first place, don't expect me to feel sorry for them when they can't afford them. I feel sorry for the kids who deserve competent parents.

 

The workers obviously disagree with you.

 

I retired as a 2%per and am during very well but I can not defend $5700 per hour. You must not have a family or relatives or friends. See, they have responsibilities. These people can not willy nilly jump from job to jump. If you don't have the money to improve their skills, you are at the mercy of your boss.

Some of you must not live in the real world.

 

I have no interest in holding someone responsible for things like what major they chose or whether they learned essential skills that any high school makes available. As long as they don't expect me to be responsible for their decisions either.

Bad stuff happens, and I'm even willing to kick something into the pot to help out folks who through bad luck or bad choices get into tough spots. But right now we're spending more than $13,000 per person from the federal government and less than 5% of the families of this nation are kicking that into the pot.

Not having the money to uproot your life and move to where you need to be to make it work? Then you may just have to start a reduced life where you need to be or even a new one. And no, that might not be your fault. But neither is it mine.


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So what have they been doing up to that point, seeing as they have never been able to "break even" ? Guess what, they can find 3 like-minded roommates, get an apartment to share, and "break even", and then some. Or join the military. Or the Peace Corps.

That you put them in a scenario where they are only victims, and cannot find a way to help themselves, is absurd. But "Woe is me" is what the lazy losers always say, and except for the impaired, these folks don't deserve squat.

Necessity is a great teacher. Free-stuff is not.

 

What's the rent where you live?

How about "I believe Abortion is murder and can't bear the though of giving up my child"? You seem to be making having a kid out as a purely economic decision. It ain't, and as much as we all wish that poor people would take care of their own (*)(*)(*)(*) before having kids they can't take care of, that just isn't likely to happen.

Hell, (*)(*)(*)(*) being a family. How about just getting by? Who are the people complaining? How many do you think actually have families? I mean, where I live, rent for a one-room apartment is between 400€ and 600€ a month, and groceries are pretty darn expensive (I drop probably 20-30 euros a week, and I shop pretty frugally). How far will minimum wage get you, between rent, food, gas/transit... The problem I had with your post was not that people need to take care of themselves. They do, and a lot of people could probably do a lot better in that regards. The problem I had was your blanket assertion that if you can manage it, so can they. No, I'm sorry, that's bull(*)(*)(*)(*), and your overgeneralization is a lot of what's wrong with the republican party.

- - - Updated - - -

You're right. That is absurd. How silly of me. I'll make sure to never assert that.

 

Can you show where I said that? Are you getting desperate for your argument.

 

Who ever told you that working a job guaranteed you a standard of living you think is necessary lied to you.

 

The idea that minimum wage is in place to guarantee some standard of living is nothing more than another entitlement concept.

You are entitled to nothing.

End of story.

 

Fact is, you didn't. But the fact also is that as such, I illuminated that the liberal argument about tax dollars, where they come from and where they go, has no merit in this discussion.

Welfare is free-stuff. The earnings of one given to another who performs no positive societal contribution in order to earn such. That is what makes it similar to an increase in minimum wage, to the status of some notion of a "living wage".

Its BS, and will not happen. But let us assume that it did. Then what happens ? More folks not working is what happens. Lots more.

The system further collapses.

And OBTW, I am so not-desperate that you could calibrate a fine instrument using me.

 

This just scares me. Like we need to give them any more incentive to spit in our food. I'm doing everything I can to minimize this. Yes sir/ma'am, no sir/ma'am. "Thank you's" after ordering, after exchanging money, after receiving food. How much more do I have to suck up?

 

I'm living at home at the moment while I attend college and work, but I've seen apartments around here go for $350 a month.

As for families, I know a ton of women from my high school and college classes that have gone on to have children, and I'm only 20. One thing that's a problem is that the relationship with the father is never stable. Either they keep breaking up and getting back together, or he leaves permanently, leaving her to raise the child on her own. My father left my mom when I was 2, so it pisses me off when a child may not have a father in their life.

 

The only thing worse than inflation is deflation.

Consumers, with respect to firms, are a commons. You know the 'tragedy of the commons,' right?

Firms exploit the consumer commons but driving their own wages down as far as possible--counting on the much larger number of consumers who work for other firms to keep demand for their and all products ever-growing. But if enough firms exploit the commons in this way, the consumer commons is reduced below the economic sustainment level. Demand collapses, a deflationary spiral sets in, and all the firms go broke.

It's one of those ways in which the invisible hand can get sort of spastic on us. Someone more visible has to take a hand sometimes.