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Fast food workers demand $15 an hour for living wage. Right now the current federal minimum wage is $7.25, and Obama called for a raise to $9 an hour.
Thursday 8/29 will be the day thousands of fast food workers across cities walk out of their jobs to strike. I guess no McDonald's, Wendy's or Taco Bell on Thursday...,
I would maybe support their demands for a minimum wage..
but they'd need to eliminate the housing subsidies that enable people like Shaniqua Davis and her unemployed boyfriend to live in the most expensive city in America.
my home here in NY was built in 1912.....its 1500sf
my other house in NC was built in 1930....its 4000sf
National averages from US census surveys over time. Here is a PDF of one census report. This one only goes back to the 1970's, so you have to dig into their data retrieval tools to see it back to the 50's.
We go back 40 years or 50 years. Working at Mcdonalds or . . the wal-mart equivalent. NO one expected these jobs to pay for a family. People made money then, and make money now.
Those days companies like P&G were more powerful of course, with really strong profit margins. There was always someone profiting. . the only change to today is the buying power of Wal-Mart and Target has shifted those profits from the suppliers (P&G) to more even with the retailers.
So when I grew up, and before that, teenagers did these jobs. Singles working through college not families. That is what these jobs are best for. Low labor, low skilled. You don't want to work long. You don't think you can have a family and do these jobs.
So the economy changes, and more people don't have the skills to compete globally. So they start taking these high-school level jobs at wal-mart etc. Somehow you act as if this is wal-marts issue or problem. You point to wal-mart as the big bad
Look, Wal-Mart shouldn't be blamed for "catching" these people
you should instead wonder why we aren't producing people who can compete globally. . .instead of blaming the net that catches the last of these people as they fall through the cracks.
There WERE more manufacturing jobs 40 or 50 years ago, but I knew plenty of adults working for minimum wage as well in retail stores, etc. The difference is that minimum wage hasn't kept up with the cost of living. In the part of the world where I grew up, fast food restaurants, outside of locally owned little summer ice cream places, or stores in the big cities, weren't even present until the 1970s.
Housing is a major issue. The size of the average home has more than doubled since 1950. You have to wonder how much more money people would have if we lived in homes similar to those in 1950.
"Average home size" is irrelevant to the topic of minimum-wage workers, since that "average" is being driven mainly by the upper-middle class, as well as the 1st-2nd-3rd homes of multimillionaires and billionaires.
You'd get more accurate analysis from the median home size specifically in the New York City area.
There WERE more manufacturing jobs 40 or 50 years ago, but I knew plenty of adults working for minimum wage as well in retail stores, etc. The difference is that minimum wage hasn't kept up with the cost of living.
"Forty years ago, there was no expectation that fast-food or discount-retail jobs would provide a living wage, because these were not jobs that, in the main, adult heads of household did. Today, low-wage workers provide forty-six per cent of their family’s income. It is that change which is driving the demand for higher pay."
These jobs are no different than they were 40 years ago. They were spending money, not heads of households. You are sooo wrong.
There WERE more manufacturing jobs 40 or 50 years ago, but I knew plenty of adults working for minimum wage as well in retail stores, etc. The difference is that minimum wage hasn't kept up with the cost of living.
All wages haven't, not just minimum wage. The strikers want equality...so 100% raises for everybody. If they don't like their minimum wage, then better yourself and get out of it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ChrisFromChicago
I've never been good at math in my head. I often would have problems getting change when I was a pizza driver. I'm diagnosed dyslexic.
I have a Computer Science degree, masters in marketing and make top 10 percentile in salary
I would rather be condescending to you than a person trying to their job at wal-mart and you put them on the spot.
Counting back change really does not require math, its counting. I can see how being dyslexic may give some issues, but if one learns how to count back change properly, they shouldn't have to do any math in their head.
"Average home size" is irrelevant to the topic of minimum-wage workers, since that "average" is being driven mainly by the upper-middle class, as well as the 1st-2nd-3rd homes of multimillionaires and billionaires.
You'd get more accurate analysis from the median home size specifically in the New York City area.
And if you look at median home sizes from the link I posted, you will see the exact same trend. Median home sizes in the northeast actually have an even larger disparity than the national average home size over time.
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