McDonalds helps you budget!

[Baby_nurse]

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.

There is a reason why a plain cup of coffee at Starbucks costs what it does. As long as people ( the public) are willing to pay those prices, Starbucks can continue to provide those benefits. The cost of all those things gets passed on to the public in one manner or another.

[Gailete]

a substantial amount of your labor costs borne by state Medicaid programs

Can you prove this? I never noticed when actually working these types of jobs that the kids (and that most of them are) were worried about insurance since generally they were still living at home and on parents policies. Where else can people work and learn basic job skills before heading into the big time? At a place I worked once we hired a new grad RN who had apparently never worked a day in her life anywhere. First day on the job she was 15 minutes late, second day even after a stern talk to by me she was late again. She didn't last a week at a job that paid well and had benefits and if she had wanted to could have stayed for years. I would rather see young kids learn to show up on time, etc. from working minimum wage jobs than give them 'livable wages' and blow off starting times, etc. when people lives are in their hands! They have to learn somewhere.

[hamchan]

There is a reason why a plain cup of coffee at Starbucks costs what it does. As long as people ( the public) are willing to pay those prices, Starbucks can continue to provide those benefits. The cost of all those things gets passed on to the public in one manner or another.

Starbucks is just one example. I already mentioned the fast food chain here (Dick's Drive In) that has prices competitive with McDonald's and still pays a living wage plus company paid bennies. I do find it interesting how fast food establishments are perfectly willing to raise their prices to cover rising food costs, but refuse to do so to increase wages. People still buy fast food even when they prices go up.

But if it were true, as many people claim, that the cost to the consumer would double or triple in order to pay a living wage to fast food workers, then Dick's would not be able to sell a cheeseburger for $1.50 and have managed to keep a thriving business for the last 60 years.

If McDonald's and other fast food giants really wanted to make things better for their employees, they could. They have far more resources and tax advantages than all the smaller companies that manage to do so and still turn a good profit.

[hamchan]

Where else can people work and learn basic job skills before heading into the big time?

I have been working since age 15 and never worked a day in fast food until my 30's. I worked in retail (both large corps and small family owned businesses), housekeeping at a motel and a bed and breakfast, student jobs with my university, file maintenance and cashiering at a union grocery store. I was even the Easter Bunny at the mall one year. Some paid better than others, but fast food isn't the only game in town for young unskilled workers.

[Petunia 100]

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 guess we will just have to agree to disagree, then.

I don't understand the mentality that you worked hard for something and now I want it, so you just need to hand it over to me. I don't know how reasonable people could be ok with that.

I'm not certain which "huge tax breaks" you are specifically talking about, but large corporations pay an awful lot of taxes. According to this http://www.stock-analysis-on.net/NYS...s/Income-Taxes, for 2012 McDonald's paid over 1.2 billion in US federal income taxes alone.

[hamchan]

Just off the top of my head I know that they get major tax incentives for hiring people who have recently collected public assistance.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/29/nyregion/29tax.html?_r=0

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE89E0F520121015?irpc=932

http://www.courthousenews.com/2013/06/20/58694.htm

[Mjenn]

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?

Yes, European McDonalds have to offer the obligatory 5 week standard vacation there to all of their employees, and yet they still remain... And they pay the locally acceptable wages.... often based on union agreements -- the horror!

[Petunia 100]

Just off the top of my head I know that they get major tax incentives for hiring people who have recently collected public assistance.

You don't have to be a large corporation to get that particular tax break, you just have to hire someone who recently collected public assistance. .

Tax credits and incentives are always about social engineering. The government wants you to behave a certain way, so they offer you money. In this case, they want businesses to hire people who have recently been on public assistance. Do you feel this is a bad thing or a good thing?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/29/ny...9tax.html?_r=0

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE89E0F520121015?irpc=932

http://www.courthousenews.com/2013/06/20/58694.htm

I did read all 3 of your links. I don't see any unethical or illegal allegations. I don't see special treatment.

For example, the first link is about property tax breaks offered to businesses in order to encourage them to not leave NYC. The article states the city intended to encourage high-paying jobs to stay, and are upset that low-paying jobs have stayed. If so, they could have easily written the law that way. But, they didn't, so now they want to "revamp" the law, I suppose to exclude employers who pay low wages.

[hamchan]

I don't think you should get tax breaks for hiring people on welfare unless you are compensating them enough to get them off of welfare. But that is just me. I never said the tax breaks were illegal, but I do think it's bad for the economy. All it's done is create a whole bunch of minimum wage jobs with inadequate benefits.

I stand with the others who believe that anyone working a 40 hour week should at the very least be able to support themselves at a basic level on that income. I don't think that is such a huge thing to ask for. I think it's the moral thing to do.

[bUU]

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.

You look up what I wrote - you'll see that I never said what you claim.

No - never mind - don't. You seem intent on lying about what I wrote because you don't like it.

Please let me know when you willing to engage in a discussion with integrity, instead of making up things to argue against when you cannot argue against what people have actually said.

Thanks.

[bUU]

I just wonder how publicly traded companies could go ethical

The key is that few could do so unilaterally, because they'll be decimated by exploitative competition. The most effective way to support businesses that aim to be ethical is under the cover provided by society which prevents other businesses from being unethical.

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.

Precisely: Doing the right thing for society cannot be left up to business because their overriding priorities are ROI and complying with the letter of the law as cheaply as possible. Doing the right thing it is something society needs to impose on business because it is literally wrong for a business to try to do it itself for the reason you outlined so well here.

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.

You're talking about window dressing. Starbucks (and Costco?) are both just a little less unethical than their competitors, and they are such because they can exploit their marginally higher level of wages and benefits to sell more. However, it's very limited, and if competitors started doing it, the competitive advantage would be gone, and it would only represent added cost. Consequently, as JoeP pointed out, the businesses would have to do away with that advantage (added cost with no ROI) in a cost-cutting measure. So paradoxically, other companies doing what you suggest would eventually end up resulting in no companies doing what you suggest.

We need adults to have skills that are of value?

We need jobs that value the skills our workers have and have the legitimate opportunity to acquire. The problem that a lot of folks who rail incessantly against the obligations society has to its citizens have is that they are unwilling to admit the barriers and other impediments that exist. They work hard to craft nonsense blaming the victims instead of taking responsibility for their own part in society's failure.

You big mistake is thinking that any company OWES it's workers a certain wage and benefits.

Your big mistake is in not reading what I write, and then still replying to it. That's not precisely what I've been saying. I'll give you a hint: My comments have been directed at society's obligations to its citizens. What I've written over and over again is "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."

Healthcare coverage, etc is a perk and not a right.

Life, basic health, basic food, basic shelter, basic education, productive utility, etc. - these are things a moral society is obligated to have readily available to its citizens.

Blaming the victim is scurrilous rhetoric. You should rethink your indefensible comments along those lines.

[bUU]

Can you prove this?

Yes. I posted source data somewhere yesterday. I'll try to dig it up for you, or you can try to dig it up yourself with Google. UPDATED: It was on Page 1 of this thread.

I never noticed when actually working these types of jobs that the kids (and that most of them are) were worried about insurance since generally they were still living at home and on parents policies.

Precisely. When it was just teenagers filling these jobs, it wasn't an issue. If you want to suggest passing laws prohibiting adults working these jobs, I won't object to your doing so. The reality is that the failure of our society to provide adequate opportunities for workers to find jobs that value their skills and the skills that they legitimately could acquire, given all the barriers and impediments in the way due to society's failure to safeguard economic justice, has resulted in an increasingly high number of these jobs now being filled by adults who have to support themselves and their families. That's where the problem stems from: The doubling of economic inequality in a generation, and that's tied back to the failure of society to maintain a healthy, just labor market. Even Janet Yellen, Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve has noted this failure and cited it as a problem society must address.

Yes, European McDonalds have to offer the obligatory 5 week standard vacation there to all of their employees, and yet they still remain... And they pay the locally acceptable wages.... often based on union agreements -- the horror!

It really is about society making a decision that human beings are more important than corporations - that corporations are a tool to be used by humans to make society better for humans. An ethical approach would value humans more than money, and by extension, value the basic needs of those less fortunate over the comfort and luxury of the affluent. Not that one should preclude the other, but rather a more ethical society would resemble the level of economic inequality of a generation ago (i.e., half of the inequality we see today).

[Gailete]

Life, basic health, basic food, basic shelter, basic education, productive utility, etc. - these are things a moral society is obligated to have readily available to its citizens.

In your opinion only.

Our constitution doesn't even guarantee it. It only promises life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It is our job to pursue happiness in our own way. If someone didn't bother listening in school, so they ended up not being educated enough to get a better job, why should we provide for them? I grew up with the philosophy of if someone doesn't want to work, then he shouldn't be given food to eat. Let him work for it. No country in the world is rich enough to provide what you want given to all. Morals has nothing to do with it.

[Petunia 100]

You look up what I wrote - you'll see that I never said what you claim.

No - never mind - don't. You seem intent on lying about what I wrote because you don't like it.

Please let me know when you willing to engage in a discussion with integrity, instead of making up things to argue against when you cannot argue against what people have actually said.

Thanks.

You have no fewer than three posts on the first page complaining about jobs paying wages "you cannot live on". In other words, jobs which do not pay "according to one's needs".

[bUU]

In your opinion only.

Fine, so let's instead rely on some more broadly supported statement, NOT my opinion:

"Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control." - The Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Our constitution doesn't even guarantee it.

You seem to think the law outlined the entirety of morality. On the contrary, the law outlines a minimal standard. Morality is a much higher standard than the law.

Morals has nothing to do with it.

Morals always has something to do with it. One has to wonder why you object to morality.

You have no fewer than three posts on the first page complaining about jobs paying wages "you cannot live on".

Which makes one wonder why you posted the nonsense you posted in response to my comments.

In other words

There's your problem. You seem to have difficulty avoiding corrupting what others write into something you're capable of arguing against, instead of respecting what they say enough to respond to what they actually say instead of your corruption of it.