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Fast Food Strike
12 years ago
General
I've been watching with interest the national one-day strike against fast-food restaurants today in favor of raising their wages to $15 an hour. As expected, there's a debate going on and I'm surprised by how few are speaking up in favor of it, and how many misassumptions there are flying around.
First off, I'm all in favor of a raise of the national minimum wage to $15 an hour. (The Australians already do better than this at $15.96.) Currently, it's at $7.25. Here in Washington State, it's $9.19. But the national poverty level for a family of four is just over $11 an hour! That means that someone earning minimum wage is already in deep water, unable to make ends meet except through a number of unacceptable cuts (inadequate meals, poor housing, lack of appropriate home care for children, inadequate means of transportation, etc.) and falling deeper into debt.
Among the complaints against raising the minimum wage that I've seen is that it isn't necessary, that folks here in Washington, especially, should be grateful that their min wage is so much higher than the rest of the country. But that's just choosing between poverty and near-poverty -- it's like choosing which you would rather have broken, your arm or just all of the fingers in one hand; either way, it's still very painful and still leaves you unable to use one hand.
"It's not a career -- it's meant to be a start-up job for teen-agers until they can get better paying jobs." First off, you need to convince McDonald's of that, as they tend to promote the jobs as careers. Secondly, I see a lot more than teens at these jobs, because the job market is still pretty tight and a lot of folks who were let go from better paying jobs over the past several years found themselves unable to secure anything but these low-paying fast food jobs. Teens are lucky if they can squeeze in.
"If you want a better paying job, go to college!" Unfortunately, this isn't true anymore. More than half of the college graduates over the past several years are still unemployed and deep in debt due to college tuitions, and they've been stuck going back to flipping burgers. http://obrag.org/?p=74116
"If they double the minimum wage, then my Big Mac will cost about $25!!!!" Nothing like hyperexaggeration. Yes, the price will go up. No, it won't be astronomical. One study suggests that it will go up by about seventy cents, but a few others suggest it will only be a nickel. I think it will likely fall somewhere in the middle, but let's say it goes up by the max: so what? It's a small price to pay for financial sustainability, and if everyone receives at least $15 an hour, then everyone will be able to easily afford that price increase.
"Most of the folks I've seen working in those places don't even deserve a wage increase!" Irrelevant for the most part, as that calls for a personal judgement on the part of the person making that claim... but consider that any individual is only going to work as hard as he feels that the job is worth to him. Anyone whose job only serves to keep him barely floating above water is bound to be sour and lacking of motivation. Give him a decent pay above subsidence and his morale and ethic is likely to improve.
"But $15 an hour is where most better-than-average jobs usually set their starting point for new employees! If McDonalds et al raise their minimum wages to $15, then the rest of the employers would have to adjust their wages too!!" What can I say? Let the burger-flippers suffer for the sake of corporations holding back their own wage limits? Given that the dollar's spending power has slipped greatly over the past couple of decades compared to the employee's general wages (a dollar's worth has slipped about roughly 28 to 58 percent just in the past dozen years), then I'd say that it long past time that ALL employers adjust their pay scales accordingly.
But -- one step at a time. Let's get those minimum wage earners on better footing first, and raise that minimum to a decent working wage.
First off, I'm all in favor of a raise of the national minimum wage to $15 an hour. (The Australians already do better than this at $15.96.) Currently, it's at $7.25. Here in Washington State, it's $9.19. But the national poverty level for a family of four is just over $11 an hour! That means that someone earning minimum wage is already in deep water, unable to make ends meet except through a number of unacceptable cuts (inadequate meals, poor housing, lack of appropriate home care for children, inadequate means of transportation, etc.) and falling deeper into debt.
Among the complaints against raising the minimum wage that I've seen is that it isn't necessary, that folks here in Washington, especially, should be grateful that their min wage is so much higher than the rest of the country. But that's just choosing between poverty and near-poverty -- it's like choosing which you would rather have broken, your arm or just all of the fingers in one hand; either way, it's still very painful and still leaves you unable to use one hand.
"It's not a career -- it's meant to be a start-up job for teen-agers until they can get better paying jobs." First off, you need to convince McDonald's of that, as they tend to promote the jobs as careers. Secondly, I see a lot more than teens at these jobs, because the job market is still pretty tight and a lot of folks who were let go from better paying jobs over the past several years found themselves unable to secure anything but these low-paying fast food jobs. Teens are lucky if they can squeeze in.
"If you want a better paying job, go to college!" Unfortunately, this isn't true anymore. More than half of the college graduates over the past several years are still unemployed and deep in debt due to college tuitions, and they've been stuck going back to flipping burgers. http://obrag.org/?p=74116
"If they double the minimum wage, then my Big Mac will cost about $25!!!!" Nothing like hyperexaggeration. Yes, the price will go up. No, it won't be astronomical. One study suggests that it will go up by about seventy cents, but a few others suggest it will only be a nickel. I think it will likely fall somewhere in the middle, but let's say it goes up by the max: so what? It's a small price to pay for financial sustainability, and if everyone receives at least $15 an hour, then everyone will be able to easily afford that price increase.
"Most of the folks I've seen working in those places don't even deserve a wage increase!" Irrelevant for the most part, as that calls for a personal judgement on the part of the person making that claim... but consider that any individual is only going to work as hard as he feels that the job is worth to him. Anyone whose job only serves to keep him barely floating above water is bound to be sour and lacking of motivation. Give him a decent pay above subsidence and his morale and ethic is likely to improve.
"But $15 an hour is where most better-than-average jobs usually set their starting point for new employees! If McDonalds et al raise their minimum wages to $15, then the rest of the employers would have to adjust their wages too!!" What can I say? Let the burger-flippers suffer for the sake of corporations holding back their own wage limits? Given that the dollar's spending power has slipped greatly over the past couple of decades compared to the employee's general wages (a dollar's worth has slipped about roughly 28 to 58 percent just in the past dozen years), then I'd say that it long past time that ALL employers adjust their pay scales accordingly.
But -- one step at a time. Let's get those minimum wage earners on better footing first, and raise that minimum to a decent working wage.
There'd still be problems, of course. Part-time employees would need a second job to reach poverty level annual income even with a bigger minimum wage, assuming an exception isn't made. Serving staff (with an assumption that they'll receive tips) are already excepted. And there will be employers that either cut back or close/don't open because they don't accept the cost.
http://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/202.....-minimum-wage/
Unfortunately many of the Multi-National chains also don't allow workers full time status. By keeping as much of the workforce in a temp or part time status they can cut down on labor cost per unit.
And a lot of manufacturing and warehousing jobs are also hiring through temp agencies, which helps them limit the amount of benefits they need to pay to their workers. If you're lucky, you might get hired away from the temp agency to work full-time, but the temp worker is more palatable to the company's bottom line.