I have seen photos on various newspapers of employees working in fast food restaurants doing unspeakable acts on food items. Surely you have seen these over the last couple of weeks!

We are about to set off on yet another long drive across America. We got tired of the fast food drive-thru, so we began going to a shop that sold foot long submarine sandwiches. Did you see the last picture of the man on the Internet??? Made my stomach turn over!

Yes, I know that every business maybe does something like this at one time or another, but the arrogance and stupidity of the people that proudly show it on the Internet tells me of the level of civility / decency / education these people have.

I'm not about to pay a staggering $15.00 for that.

All true and an excellent post! Yet somehow we have to figure out how to solve some inequities. Today's minimum wage adjusted for inflation and iis more than $2 an hour less than the $2.25 minimum wage in the 1960's. the average age of a minimum wage worker has climbed from teenager to 27 years old. Many minimum wage workers today are not given enough hours to qualify for benefits. So while I agree that doubling the minimum wage to $15 an hour will not solve anything and may force many mom and pop businesses out, there are other issues that need to be looked at too. While I cannot readily cite the sources of my statements, I can relate a personal story of a minimum wage worker. My brother in law graduated stoneybrook univ. in NY in the 1970's with a BS degree. He couldn't find a job and went to work for Burger King. He was soon promoted to night mgr, then day mgr, then store mgr, then area mgr, then district mgr. they sent him to business classes at Wharton and Harvard. When they wanted to open up Europe they chose him and he spent 3 years in London. Then they wanted to open up Asia and again chose him and he lived in Tokyo for 2 years. He's 60 years old and has been retired vey comfortably for 10 years. Not bad for a minimum wage worker!

BarryRX - that is the way it is supposed to work, but I'll say it again we have lost sight of these jobs being a stepping stone - people now see them as a career!

the social environment we have allowed to germinate within our society breeds an entitlement type mentallity. For example, no matter how unaffordable new technology and data plans and internet acces can be, "they" all have it....whether they can afford it or not. Then there is an expectation that some way or another, there must be a way to get more money to supplement/subsidize the lifestyle to an almost you owe me attitude.

Some of us remember and still live by the a style that dictates you don't get it until you can afford it. And if you can't....you simply don't. An extreme contrary to today's mentality and to my surprise even supported by those who should know better.

If you don't or didn't earn it....you simply do not get it.....and YOU ARE CERTAINLY NOT ENTITLED!!!!

btk

An excellent post and you make some very good points. But aren't some of the problems that you cite the fault of some (not all) of the workers themselves? And can't we place some of the blame on our society and educational system?
Many of the minimum wage workers are not worth the money that they are getting paid. Many have not educated themselves and as another poster pointed out are part of the "I am owed" society that we have become. I believe that the high school drop out rate is the highest that it's ever been so we have many more uneducated people entering the workplace and don't have the skills to advance like your brother-in-law did. Have we not lowered the standards in our educational system to make the drop out rate lower than it even might be had we maintained the standard that we once had? So now we have high school graduates that have what would once have been an eighth grade education.
We also have had many colleges lowering standards in order to admit more students. I taught part time at a college of over 15 years and was continually stunned by the lack of knowledge and intelligence of so many of my students. Many, simply did not belong in college and should have been counseled to go to a trade school. But, we have also developed an attitude in this country that every kid must go to college. You are seen as a failure as a parent if you child doesn't go to college.
Many college's today are more interested in their bottom line and expanding so that they can make more money than they are the education of our future work force. College has become too much of a business today. We have kids graduating colleges that should never have gotten out of high school. Because of this, a high school degree is worthless today and a bachelor's degree, in many cases, is equivalent to what a high diploma once was.
I'm not saying that this is the entire problem and certainly there are some good qualified people out there who are making less than what they should, but there are at least as many who do not do enough to even earn the minimum wage that they get. How is a business supposed to succeed when they need to hire two incompetent people to do the work of one competent employee? On top of that, the government keeps making them pay the incompetent people even more.
There might be some inequity as you say, but I think that most people get pretty much what they deserve.

So by just looking at the photos you were able to determine that THOSE picketing all or some of them spit in food?

Also, you are not paying 15.00 ... You are probable paying pennies on the dollar. I read somewhere that if they increased their sandwiches by 48 cents they could double the salary rate and also include full benefits. To me .48 is a savings compared to what I am paying for emergency room health care.

And, you could choose not to eat at one of the fast food places that chose to take care of their employees ... In fact it would be healthier for you not to anyway.

That leads to an ideal question. Would you pay 50 cents more for a burger at seller A who pays more than min wage and provides full benefits vs regular price for seller B who does neither?

I choose to shop at Costco because of that very reason. Somehow they pay their workers over 40,000 per year and give full benefit to both full time and part time employees while SAMs club pays less than 20,000 and cuts hours to avoid paying benefits, yet Costco made over 500m in profits last quarter. How can that be? You tell me whose employees are more of a drag on the economy?

Paying $15.00 minimum would put many places out of business. If you want to pay $7.00 for a big mac, that's not realistic. I worked in payroll for a large manufacturer where factory employees made $25.00 doing daywork but that was 10 years ago and now that is down to $15.00 per hour because no way you can compete with china in manufacturing.

You might want to reread that article - it was done by an undergraduate using numbers only from company owned stores - not the franchises - so it's really not worth the paper it's written on. His own professor said it was not well done.

Walk a mile in their shoes!
 

A minimum wage job for a teenager and a minimum wage job for an adult who's trying to support himself / herself are two different things. If an employer can't afford to pay a decent wage, he shouldn't be an employer. Let's have you support yourself on minimum wage for a few months and see how quickly you're singing a different tune!

Some money is better than no money and most of us either worked a LOT of hourly hours at the beginning of our careers or knows someone who did.

Small business owners like Missy Pie are not able to cure society's ills. She is trying to make a living herself. Things are just not that simple. No one WANTS people to do without. Necessity is often the mother of invention. A man who I know who lives here, now a very secure person financially worked two jobs for 12 years when he was young. You have to crawl before you can walk. In this country if you get up early and work hard you can be rich. Then people can think you were born with it.

You miss the point of minimum wage jobs entirely. Go back and read BarryXs post number 79.

You need to understand that each and every person working in a minimum wage position has an equal opportunity to move up and on. The sad reality is, even if you don't want to acknowledge it, many many people do not have the internal fortitude, basic upbringing, or desire to do what it takes to earn a living. Does that fact mean that everyone else is obligated to support them?

I can remember when my dad worked for minimum wage, but he worked two jobs and supported 8 kids. We never had much, but we had enough to eat and roof over our heads. Our home was neat, maintained without trash and jacked up cars in the drive. Living responsibly is a choice! In this day and age, you do whatever it takes.

Sounds like we have some posters that would like to "occupy wall street"!

:mmmm: With all due respect, I don't believe everything I see on the Internet. Most fast food restaurants i.e. McDonald's, Wendy's, Burger King, Steak n' Shake, Arby's etc. run a pretty tight and clean ship. The minimum wage has always been debated and probably always will be debated. We went for years without an increase in minimum wages but prices still went up. How do you
account for that? I know it's complicated.......

Not in my family, not with my children! My three daughters all in their mid-30's, early 40's, have always provided for their own health ins. They are responsible and certain things come before "fun". Specifically they are, taxes, life & health ins., long term savings for children's college exp., 401K, etc. They have always put their future ahead of their more immediate need for "fun". I don't think we can nor should lump all 20 somethings together, any more than we can or should lump all business owners together.

I do agree with you in one aspect. Not ALL 20 somethings are irresponsible. However, all you have to do is observe how most young people act and look at current stats on how many young people do not have health insurance now even though it is cheap and/or subsidized by their employers. Most young adults are not like your three daughters or my own three girls. They, too, learned the value of work ethic from the time they were in high school.