McDonalds helps you budget!

[bigdaddybus]

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 money has to come from somewhere. I dont really go to fast food places, but my kids love the crap. Having executives in my family I know the average american cant even begin to understand how excessive their lifestyles are.

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

unfortunately, not many with the financial resources to make an impact are going to care or have any incentive to care.

My company the average salary is $40,726 and the CEO's salary is $9,250,000 or 227X the average employee. How hard would it be for McDonalds to move in this dirrection? How many people would it benifit vs what they do now? ALOT!

[bUU]

unfortunately, not many with the financial resources to make an impact are going to care or have any incentive to care.

I hope that is not true, and (if you accept that Republicans defend business having a freer reign and Democrats defend stronger regulations on business in the interest of economic justice) the data indicates that it isn't true.


Full article: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/...d-independents

Of course, many will make the point that the increase in Independents is skewing them away from economic justice, so that would make your assertion true.

[riverwed070707]

unfortunately, not many with the financial resources to make an impact are going to care or have any incentive to care.

My company the average salary is $40,726 and the CEO's salary is $9,250,000 or 227X the average employee. How hard would it be for McDonalds to move in this dirrection? How many people would it benifit vs what they do now? ALOT!

This is an interesting concept. Not that the CEOs are hurting for money but doesn't this then cap the amount of money the CEO can make based on the skills and worth of their labor rather than on the profit they achieve or scale of the business they manage?

Lets say my company has the same number of employees at McDs but my labor force is highly specialized and well compensated for those skills making an average of $80k/year. If McDs employees significantly more entry positions with a few management and corporate roles bringing their average down to $40k/year then I can make 2x as much as the McDs CEO even if his business profits twice as much? I'm not arguing CEO pay or that they should get more or anything more than just wondering if such a cap could actually be practically applied.

[JoeP]

I just wonder how McDonalds, or any other low-paying publicly traded restaurant chain, can compensate their employees more. Jacking up prices on their food will push people to other eateries which may still be offering food at lower prices. Can they get strategic initiatives related to better compensation past the board of directors and ultimately the shareholders?

I'd love to see fast food workers being able to have a living wage.

[bUU]

I think focusing on getting McDonald's to change is barking up the wrong tree. We need to change the labor market itself, such that McDonald's (and Wal-Mart and the rest) simply cannot find enough adults to work for them in those jobs (because they all have better jobs than that, already), so that they're forced to fill those positions with teenagers, exclusively. Until we reach that point, we still need to change things so that these employers are required to offer full-time benefits to all employees to disincentivize the practice of essentially earning profits with a substantial amount of your labor costs borne by state Medicaid programs. If McDonald's does get back to the point where they're finally, again filling those jobs with teenagers exclusively, then there won't be a significant cost to them for this, because it would cost the teenager('s family) less to cover those teenagers on their parent's health coverage (to age 26) rather than paying for individual health insurance for the teenager through McDonald's employer-sponsored plan.

[hamchan]

I did work at another huge fast food franchise a few years ago as a second job. It was a total joke. I was hired immediately, put on the schedule,sent home after an hour or two of work due to slow business nearly every day I was there, and then after two weeks of that was never put on the schedule again. I took the job very seriously and worked my butt off while I was there because I needed the money to pay down debts. In the end I was charged for my uniform and not paid at all for half of the hours I worked. My first and only paycheck was 25$. I shudder to think if I had actually depended on that job to put food on the table. When I was hired it was never mentioned to me that there may not be any hours to give me or that I might be sent home all the time. It was a complete waste of my time and effort.

[bigdaddybus]

I think focusing on getting McDonald's to change is barking up the wrong tree. We need to change the labor market itself, such that McDonald's (and Wal-Mart and the rest) simply cannot find enough adults to work for them in those jobs (because they all have better jobs than that, already), so that they're forced to fill those positions with teenagers, exclusively. Until we reach that point, we still need to change things so that these employers are required to offer full-time benefits to all employees to disincentivize the practice of essentially earning profits with a substantial amount of your labor costs borne by state Medicaid programs. If McDonald's does get back to the point where they're finally, again filling those jobs with teenagers exclusively, then there won't be a significant cost to them for this, because it would cost the teenager('s family) less to cover those teenagers on their parent's health coverage (to age 26) rather than paying for individual health insurance for the teenager through McDonald's employer-sponsored plan.

I would like to see this happen in less than a generation.

If the below is true, the USA is in for a years and years of growing the gap between the haves and have nots.
Net added jobs (2013):
Minimum wage restaurant and bar employment: 239,000
Manufacturing jobs: 13,000

[Petunia 100]

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.

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

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

I'm speaking clearly, using common everyday words. I assume your repeated misunderstanding is deliberate. That's fine.

Hold to your Marxxist ideals as you wish.

Best of luck to you.

[Petunia 100]

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.

McDonald's does not have a responsibility to pay above market wages.

[bUU]

I hold no "Marxxist ideals". I don't see what you gain from engaging in such a deception.

[Petunia 100]

I hold no "Marxxist ideals". I don't see what you gain from engaging in such a deception.

Paying people based on their needs irrespective of the job they perform is not a Marxxist ideal? Lol. It is his primary principal. Look it up.

[hamchan]

McDonald's does not have a responsibility to pay above market wages.

Legally, no, but I find it highly unethical for them and many other businesses like them to make their billions of profits at the expense of those who are working hard for them, and at the expense of the tax payers who very often have to fill in the gaps with social programs. Meanwhile these same companies are getting huge tax breaks. I don't know how anyone could be ok with that. I don't want my tax dollars subsidizing billion dollar corporations. Period.

[JoeP]

Legally, no, but I find it highly unethical for them and many other businesses like them to make their billions of profits at the expense of those who are working hard for them, and at the expense of the tax payers who very often have to fill in the gaps with social programs. Meanwhile these same companies are getting huge tax breaks. I don't know how anyone could be ok with that. I don't want my tax dollars subsidizing billion dollar corporations. Period.

I agree that it is wrong to use taxpayer dollars to pick up where corporations left off with respect to benefits.

I just wonder how publicly traded companies could go ethical (according to whose ethics?) and still exist. Since one duty of the board of directors is to maximize shareholder value, doing less even for the right reasons means that shareholders will sell and the stock value will drop. Since everything is so tied together, a lot of other industries will be affected...and ultimately our mutual funds.

[hamchan]

I don't claim to be an expert by any means, but Starbucks and Costco are at least two I can think of that pay higher wages and have health insurance for even part time employees. So it seems to me that it can be done.

[Baby_nurse]

I think focusing on getting McDonald's to change is barking up the wrong tree. We need to change the labor market itself, such that McDonald's (and Wal-Mart and the rest) simply cannot find enough adults to work for them in those jobs (because they all have better jobs than that, already), so that they're forced to fill those positions with teenagers, exclusively. Until we reach that point, we still need to change things so that these employers are required to offer full-time benefits to all employees to disincentivize the practice of essentially earning profits with a substantial amount of your labor costs borne by state Medicaid programs. If McDonald's does get back to the point where they're finally, again filling those jobs with teenagers exclusively, then there won't be a significant cost to them for this, because it would cost the teenager('s family) less to cover those teenagers on their parent's health coverage (to age 26) rather than paying for individual health insurance for the teenager through McDonald's employer-sponsored plan.

Wait, isn't that what we have been saying all along? We need adults to have skills that are of value?

You big mistake is thinking that any company OWES it's workers a certain wage and benefits. Healthcare coverage, etc is a perk and not a right. These perks were put in place to attract and keep the best workers. Workers who put themselves in charge of making sure they possessed marketable skills.

When people take *gasp* personal responsibility for that, then possibly you will see Mickey D's changing. But stomping your feet and mandating that people be given a specific set of things that you arbitrarily deem they "deserve" because they have a pulse isn't going to make it happen.