McDonalds helps you budget!

[Petunia 100]

Cause: Large numbers of workers without health benefits. Effect: High costs to Medicaid in state after state. Proven.

More specifically, large numbers of workers with kids and no health insurance. Now, why do large numbers of workers with kids have no health insurance?

No I didn't, not "kind of" or otherwise. Again, stop the nonsense.

Yet again, it wasn't nonsense. If I were for the sake of argument to assume your claim was true, it would have to be that McDonald's was somehow preventing their workers from acquiring job skills. I absolutely agree with you McDonald's is doing no such thing. Therefore, your claim is false.

It boils down to this common argument: If A, then B. If not A, then not B. Because we have a "not A", we also have a "not B".

I've seen that statement before; it is nothing but rationalization for self-serving exploitation of others. Thanks for modeling the problematic perspective that we're talking about.

Now here is that nonsense you keep mentioning.

[Wino]

Cause: Large numbers of workers without health benefits. Effect: High costs to Medicaid in state after state. Proven. Stop the nonsense and deal with the facts.

I cannot believe you are serious. McDonald's is the reason those large number of unskilled, otherwise-unemployable workers have any money earned at all. McD's is responsible for them having SOME money at all. Your syllogism falls apart on its face. The point is that McD's did not cause the poverty. Their lack of marketable and valuable skill caused the poverty. Oh! Now I'm asking that folks accept responsibility for their own actions and choices. That doesn't work in utopia.

I've seen that statement before; it is nothing but rationalization for self-serving exploitation of others. Thanks for modeling the problematic perspective that we're talking about.

Rather than using the government to force others to pay some imaginary "fair" wage that will not solve anything. Once again I point out the reality of the situation: If a business is not making more from an individual than that individual is earning for the company, then the business is better off without the employee.

Let me put some simple numbers to it, since bUU, you obviously have never run a business:

If you are adding $10 per hour to my company's bottom line, then I cannot pay you more than about $6 to $7 per hour. I must pay for the fixed costs out of the difference. I've seen very few businesses that are successful that do not have electricity, walls, inventory, and other fixed costs. Those are called "expenses," and payroll is one of the largest in any business. If one does not minimize costs, then one will be beaten out by those who do.

Mandating that everyone gets $100 per hour tomorrow, forces all prices to go up. Talk to Jimmy Carter and look up the misery index to see how well that works. It's no better than Nixon's price and wage freeze. In fact, it's only the other side of the same coin, and neither method of government intervention works.

Illinois is right now trying your "living wage" by government edict. How's that working out for them? Texas is doing the opposite and allowing folks to run their businesses in whatever way they can make a profit.

I'll give you a hint: See the thread about not being able to sell a house in Illinois when moving to Austin, TX for a job. OH! You mean giving folks some freedom creates good-paying jobs, while forcing them to over-pay for labor forces the economy to crash? Wow. What a concept. We used to do this country-wide, back when we were into the whole "freedom" thing.

[hamchan]

Yeah, I am not buying for one second that McDonald's would go under if they paid their employees more. There is a local burger chain in my area that starts all employees at $10 an hour, pays for 100% of their health insurance for all employees working at least 24 hours a week, and has sick pay, paid vacation, and a company match on their 401k. Their prices are competitive with McDonald's. They have been in business for 60 years. How on earth are they able to accomplish that without putting themselves out of business? Magic?

[Wino]

Hamchan, McDonald's is a franchise operation. You are more than welcome to open a franchise ($), build a location (more $), and hire folks, paying them whatever you want.

Let me know how that works out for you.

[bUU]

More specifically, ...

Thank you for at least tacitly admitting that I actually had proven the point earlier, and you were just spewing nonsense to equivocate. With regard to your new point, I'm going to stick with what we were discussing instead of allowing you to try to distract attention from it by going off onto a tangent. Reminding you (since you seem to claim to forget, at times) ...

The point is that an increasingly bigger percentage of jobs are the kind of jobs you cannot live on, leaving an increasingly bigger percentage of the population without the opportunity to get a job paying wages that they can live on.

Yet again, it wasn't nonsense.

It was, and I'm not going to belabor it further to give you a platform to repeat it.

Now here is that nonsense you keep mentioning.

More self-serving vacuous distraction from points you don't want to address. What else could you post though?

I cannot believe you are serious.

I believe your comment is disingenuous. You would have to be living under a rock to not know that half this country is appalled at the emerging self-serving perspectives that you seem to support.

Let me put some simple numbers to it, since bUU, you obviously have never run a business:

I have run a business, but of course running a business doesn't make one an expert on morality and what's good for society overall.

That's the problem with your logic: You think it does.

[hamchan]

Wino, you say that as though it somehow absolves McDonald's of any responsibility for how much their employees are paid. Fast food giants CREATED the franchise system in order to maximize their own profits while virtually eliminating risk.

[Wino]

I have run a business...

and it failed.

There you go. I fixed it for you.

And being a utopian obviously makes you oblivious to mathematics and economics.

You have your opinions and you won't let facts and logic persuade you. I'm done with this thread.

[bUU]

and it failed.

No it didn't... but thanks for proving so clearly that you're quick to spew nonsense you know nothing about, in a desperate attempt to defend your flawed perspective.

[bjl584]

I see this program as just that. It's something that McDonald's is offering to their employees should they want to use it. I think that it's getting blown way out of proportion.

We can argue all day about minimum wage and living wage and company rights, but that doesn't have anything to do with what McDonalds is doing here. I think what McDonalds is saying to their employees is that "here is what we are going to pay you. here is a budget tool on our website if you want to use it."

I agree that minimum wage is no way to make a living, but being a member of this forum for as long as I have, I routinely see people come here seeking advise that are busted out broke earning six figure salaries. So, do we have an income problem or a spending problem?

[Baby_nurse]

No it didn't... but thanks for proving so clearly that you're quick to spew nonsense you know nothing about, in a desperate attempt to defend your flawed perspective.

You might want to take a look in the mirror while you type that .

[JoeP]

I see this program as just that. It's something that McDonald's is offering to their employees should they want to use it. I think that it's getting blown way out of proportion.

Agreed. Such a tool may also provide the opportunity for a worker to see how tight things could be, and motivate action to escape from that situation.

[riverwed070707]

I see this program as just that. It's something that McDonald's is offering to their employees should they want to use it. I think that it's getting blown way out of proportion.

We can argue all day about minimum wage and living wage and company rights, but that doesn't have anything to do with what McDonalds is doing here. I think what McDonalds is saying to their employees is that "here is what we are going to pay you. here is a budget tool on our website if you want to use it."

I agree that minimum wage is no way to make a living, but being a member of this forum for as long as I have, I routinely see people come here seeking advise that are busted out broke earning six figure salaries. So, do we have an income problem or a spending problem?

[bigdaddybus]

Last year the ratio of CEO pay to average worker in the S&P500 was 354 to 1. I would love to see this ratio capped to 150 to 1.

Use McDonalds for instance. Their CEO made $8,750,000 last year. A minimum wage worker in my state makes $8.25 an hour at McDonalds. The CEO makes $4,206.73 an hour or 509X as much money as thier entry level worker.

In order to meet my idea of utopia, the average salary for a McDonalds worker would have to be $28.04 to keep this exessive executive compensation going. (supply/demand wont let that happen as not many will buy McDonalds food at 3X the price) I think the right answer is a mix of both, lowering executive compensation and raising the average workers wages.

The gap between the haves and have nots is growing very fast with noone giving a damn right now.

[bUU]

I see this program as just that. It's something that McDonald's is offering to their employees should they want to use it. I think that it's getting blown way out of proportion.

What's interesting is that the ones who are blowing what McDonald's is doing in terms of budgeting assistance out of proportion are the folks desperately trying to defend the distinctly anti-employee greed-centric perspective. The reality is that McDonald's can be be doing this "good" and it still can be an indicator of a broad societal problem, which some of us are talking about despite the continual attempts at distraction by those trying to drown out the bigger issues because those bigger issues shine a light on aspects of our society that they don't want changed back to a more progressive approach, and doing so by trying to corrupt what I and others are saying into some attack specifically on McDonald's attempt to provide budget planning assistance, when the reality is it criticism of the overall economic environment reflected in the sample budget McDonald's originally presented.

I agree that minimum wage is no way to make a living, but being a member of this forum for as long as I have, I routinely see people come here seeking advise that are busted out broke earning six figure salaries. So, do we have an income problem or a spending problem?

Both. The spending problem individuals can and should solve themselves, and there are many resources for that available. Heck people like Suze Orman and Dave Ramsey earn their living providing guidance on such issues. The income problem cannot be solved by individuals themselves, despite repeated claims by those who don't want the income problem addressed, because they fear it will cut into their own comfort and luxury. The income problem needs to be solved by society overall, through its government and the economy it furnishes.

You might want to take a look in the mirror while you type that .

I look in the mirror all the time. I know about the issues I'm raising. I also know well the tactics people try to use to scuttle reasonable discussions of responsible and just remediation of problems that they personally don't want solved, because they personally don't suffer the consequences of those problems and fear that solution of those problems will cut into their own comfort and luxury.

Last year the ratio of CEO pay to average worker in the S&P500 was 354 to 1. I would love to see this ratio capped to 150 to 1.

I think that's just poking a pretty weak stick at the problem. The problem is not how much CEOs get paid. The problem is how little the average worker gets paid, specifically as compared to the cost of living.

The gap between the haves and have nots is growing very fast with noone giving a damn right now.

It's not true: Roughly half of the country cares. The other half doesn't. That's the problem.

[Gailete]

I see this program as just that. It's something that McDonald's is offering to their employees should they want to use it. I think that it's getting blown way out of proportion.

We can argue all day about minimum wage and living wage and company rights, but that doesn't have anything to do with what McDonalds is doing here. I think what McDonalds is saying to their employees is that "here is what we are going to pay you. here is a budget tool on our website if you want to use it."

I agree that minimum wage is no way to make a living, but being a member of this forum for as long as I have, I routinely see people come here seeking advise that are busted out broke earning six figure salaries. So, do we have an income problem or a spending problem?

Am I the only one on this board that has actually worked at a McD? It was my second place of that type I have worked with Arbys being the other. I was burned out with nursing and quit cold turkey, but needing some money went and got a job at McD. None of the employees seemed in the least exploited. None were complaining of lack of benefits. Since that point in time (late 90's) I do see hiring posters there that claim they can get health insurance so it is available. Most employees were and still are High school age kids or college kids all who need flexible schedules to be able to go to school and McD provides that (as well as all the other fast food places). How many other jobs can you find that is willing to work with some one's schedule so they can go take classes or whatever? These employees generally move on to more 'productive' work once they are done with school and get 'better' jobs. McD is also great about hiring the mentally challenged to give them jobs and pride in what they can accomplish. Other than managers, you will rarely see long term employees at these kinds of places, because they do move on and these franchises know that they will have a large turn over in employees. The ones that stay are housewives whose may have husbands getting insurance, those who are not intelligent enough to find jobs elsewhere (they are many times the ones emptying the garbage and other jobs that take little training), and some people just like working there because they get to be around people. These kids are learning job skills that they will need out there in the 'real' world. When I was cured of my burn out, I quit and went back to nursing, but I certainly never felt exploited. If I had stayed I probably could have worked my way up into management.

For all those that think these places are so evil to their employees, I trust that you NEVER ever support them by shopping at them or buying food from them. I believe almost all chain restaurants have been named along with the really big bad place, Wal-Mart. If you support them by buying from them, then you too are perpetuating the evil. I personally will shop there and eat there as I can't afford to buy things for more expense when Wal-Mart has it significantly cheaper.

I think helping kids starting out to even think about budgeting is a good thing, because many times money woes are spending problems, not income ones.