McDonald's Can't Figure Out How Its Workers Survive on Minimum Wage

[Pirate Utopian]

Well this is both embarrassing and deeply telling.

In what appears to have been a gesture of goodwill gone haywire, McDonald's recently teamed up with Visa to create a financial planning site for its low-pay workforce. Unfortunately, whoever wrote the thing seems to have been literally incapable of imagining of how a fast food employee could survive on a minimum wage income. As ThinkProgress and other outlets have reported, the site includes a sample budget that, among other laughable assumptions, presumes that workers will have a second job.

http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/business/mcdonaldssamplemonthlybudget.jpg

As Jim Cook at Irregular Times notes, the $1,105 figure up top is roughly what the average McDonald's cashier earning $7.72 an hour would take home each month after payroll taxes, if they worked 40 hours a week. So this budget applies to someone just about working two full-time jobs at normal fast-food pay. (The federal minimum wage is just $7.25 an hour, by the way, but 19 states and DC set theirs higher).

A few of the other ridiculous conceits here: This hypothetical worker doesn't pay a heating bill. I guess some utilities are included in their $600 a month rent? (At the end of 2012, average rent in the U.S. was $1,048). Gas and groceries are bundled into $27 a day spending money. And this individual apparently has access to $20 a month healthcare. McDonald's, for its part, charges employees $12.58 a week for the company's most basic health plan. Well, that's if they've been with the company for a year. Otherwise, it's $14.

Now, it's possible that McDonald's and Visa meant this sample budget to reflect a two-person household. That would be a tad more realistic, after all. Unfortunately, the brochure doesn't give any indication that's the case. Nor does it change the fact that most of these expenses would apply to a single person.

Of course, minimum wage workers aren't really entirely on their own, especially if they have children. There are programs like food stamps, Medicaid, and the earned income tax credit to help them along. But that's sort of the point. When large companies make profits by paying their workers unlivable wages, we end up subsidizing their bottom lines.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/07/mcdonalds-literally-cannot-imagine-how-its-workers-would-survive-on-the-minimum-wage/277845/

[RadioRaheem84]

Good God, these companies are outrageous! How on earth could they just blatantly plan a persons finances like that?

What's even more telling is how these companies plan their employees life! Essentially who needs a dictatorship when you have your own income dictating your life. I guess right wingers excuse this slice of life as irrelevant as you have the "freedom to leave" whenever you want.

[RedSonRising]

Err, they don't eat I guess?

[Leftsolidarity]

Err, they don't eat I guess?

Most of them expect you to get on food stamps if you aren't already

[connoros]

Good God, these companies are outrageous! How on earth could they just blatantly plan a persons finances like that?

What's even more telling is how these companies plan their employees life! Essentially who needs a dictatorship when you have your own income dictating your life. I guess right wingers excuse this slice of life as irrelevant as you have the "freedom to leave" whenever you want.

Exactly. The neoliberal argument is that these people are not prevented by the state itself from attaining scholarships and higher education, through which they can obtain higher-paying work. If the state doesn't explicitly prevent it, you have that freedom, as far as any bourgeois democracy is concerned. With the fall of the Soviet Union, "freedom from want" has dropped out of American political discourse; if you can't afford it, you must've done something wrong.

[Was tun, wenn's brennt?]

Well, yeah, if they actually paid the people who did all the real work a decent wage the CEO's wouldn't be able to live their lives of luxury. Besides, it's not like these people are forced to take the job, right? :rolleyes:

[LOLseph Stalin]

McDonald's is pretty much outing themselves here that they don't pay their employees enough. Bad move on their part...

[BIXX]

Well, yeah, if they actually paid the people who did all the real work a decent wage the CEO's wouldn't be able to live their lives of luxury. Besides, it's not like these people are forced to take the job, right? :rolleyes:

The worst part is they still could live their lives of luxury, with little to no difference to how they're living now.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/07/mcdonalds-literally-cannot-imagine-how-its-workers-would-survive-on-the-minimum-wage/277845/

$1,105 sounds like a dream to me.

[Philosophos]

Exactly. The neoliberal argument is that these people are not prevented by the state itself from attaining scholarships and higher education, through which they can obtain higher-paying work. If the state doesn't explicitly prevent it, you have that freedom, as far as any bourgeois democracy is concerned.


They forget the part about being poor and you might not be able to afford education or the part that some people can't go to university (LIKE FUCKING ME) because they lost the position in the university for a couple of points from the finals...

If they can't justify that they might also bring Darwin to the table :closedeyes:

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

They forget the part about being poor and you might not be able to afford education or the part that some people can't go to university (LIKE FUCKING ME) because they lost the position in the university for a couple of points from the finals...

If they can't justify that they might also bring Darwin to the table :closedeyes:

Don't let them do that! There are certain things which we as class conscious workers cannot permit in our presence, no matter our own personal material situation. Certain things like this and Reactionaries have to feel that they have no place in this society.

[RadioRaheem84]

Ok so essentially this reveals just how they view the average worker too.

Based on the numbers this person is living in the ghetto with roommates, driving a super cheap old clunker or a used lemon, probably uses county healthcare which is why the healthcare payment is low, doesn't use heat, has a cricket phone and has no children or no desire to go back to school. That 800 bucks spending cash will get eaten up by food and rent. Not to mention they have to be mighty disciplined to not fuck up once; no car ever getting towed, no tickets, no going over on cell minutes, no luxury expenses, no losing of money of any kind cus that will just send that person into dire straits.

This is what they think of workers. It can be done dont get me wrong but the fundamental point is that the bar has been significantly lowered. The standard of living has plummeted and just because this budget can be done by a single healthy young person with no commitments to anything but his jobs it doesn't fucking mean it has to be done by everyone. But this is type of worker they want. This what conservatives mean by taking personal responsibility. If you complain they call you a whiner. If you demand better they call you lazy and a dreamer.

Fuck right wing America and their excuses for corporate America to rob workers of their dignity.

[Popular Front of Judea]

There needs to be a line in the budget to enter the income from the basic income (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income_guarantee).

[d3crypt]

Well what do you expect its fucking Mcdonalds. They along with Walmart are practicaly the poster kids for capitalism.

[Popular Front of Judea]

The neoliberal era of capitalism.


Well what do you expect its fucking Mcdonalds. They along with Walmart are practicaly the poster kids for capitalism.

[bcbm]

'savings' get real:(

[Ceallach_the_Witch]

I think the worst thing is how "normal" this kind of behaviour is becoming. I know people in real life, who when confronted with this kind of stuff (ie that a minimum wage job is not a living wage job) simply say "they should get another job then". It's not quite as bad in the UK - our minumum wage for over 21's is equivalent to $9.45 and obviously for the time being we still have the NHS and other forms of support (but for how long :( )

The other worrying thing is the number of governments who are considering lowering the minimum wage!

[RadioRaheem84]

The neoliberal era of capitalism.

Then what did coal miners experience in matewan? Does capitalism really have to be split end up into eras? Stages yes, but its not like the neoliberal makes it seem any worse than before.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

So, I spend way less money than this, but also live in conditions that amount to squalor by the standards of anyone who is willing to drop $600 a month on rent. My big issue with this: Who the fuck works, like 80 hours a week? That's obscene - when the fuck does a person have time to live, especially if one takes in to account commuting, upkeep of uniforms, shopping for necessities, etc. And when will one get the chance to live? The answer is never 'cos do the math. Saving $100 a month, and never spends a dime of savings on anything (eg no health costs not covered by cheapo insurance, never taking a vacation, nothing) even if one works non-stop from 16 to 65 adds up to a total of $58,800. In other words, you've got exactly enough retirement money to live under four years.

So. Much. Rage.

[RadioRaheem84]

The reactionary argument is that you must work and take care of your responsibilities before you get to play.

75 hours a week at McDonald's for low pay is your choice and therefore it's your responsibility. Reactionaries cannot stand it whenever people complain, check out, or cannot hold on or maintain this lifestyle. They think it's negating your duties and responsibilities.

[ckaihatsu]

Well, yeah, if they actually paid the people who did all the real work a decent wage the CEO's wouldn't be able to live their lives of luxury. Besides, it's not like these people are forced to take the job, right? :rolleyes:


The companies wouldn't be able to "attract top-level talent" without competitive CEO compensation packages that hurt wages for everyone else.

[ckaihatsu]

The reactionary argument is that you must work and take care of your responsibilities before you get to play.

75 hours a week at McDonald's for low pay is your choice and therefore it's your responsibility. Reactionaries cannot stand it whenever people complain, check out, or cannot hold on or maintain this lifestyle. They think it's negating your duties and responsibilities.


This, to me, then, is how to tell 'right' from 'left' -- if one thinks that the world is as it should be, or not. To impute that the system is a fair one, and thus essentially meritocratic, is to reveal oneself as a conservative / reactionary with vested interests in the system, always ready to pass judgments on all others based on interactions with it.

[Popular Front of Judea]

No but the era of capitalism determines the limit on what can be done within the capitalist framework. If Walmart is the corporation of the neoliberal era then General Motors with its generous union contracts was the corporation of the post war 'Fordist' era, which ended somewhere around 1973. (Read Stayin’ Alive The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class (http://thenewpress.com/index.php?option=com_title&task=view_title&metaproductid=1545) by Jefferson Cowie to see the transition.)


Then what did coal miners experience in matewan? Does capitalism really have to be split end up into eras? Stages yes, but its not like the neoliberal makes it seem any worse than before