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

[AnyFriendofGod]

"Ifone wants to earn a "living wage: they need to acquire the skills to make them worth being paid a “living wage”

That is true! There will always be those who aren’t able to but they should be by far the exception or we are in big trouble already. I don’t see how it benefits people to let them set a low bar for themselves.

 

[TheWarriorMonk]

We subsidize the bottom lines of any business we deal with. The minimum wage was never intended to be enough for a person to live on. The only thing instituting a so called living wage will do it put every teenage in the country out of job-and quite of few adults also.

If one wants to earn a "living wage: they need to acquire the skills to make them worth being paid a “living wage”

Exactly true.

Providing everyone with a living wage doesn’t work in a capitalist system. FWIW, I used to work in such jobs (fast food, catering, etc.) when I was in college, and nobody was there expecting to make a “living wage.” In fast food, many of the employees working the line were either high school kids all college kids who were simply working there for pocket change. There were also some spouses (generally woman) that worked there for additional income and/or benefits. Nobody thought of working the line as a stand-alone career.

There were occasionally some people that enjoyed the work, and did turn it into a career. However, they went into management. But guess what…it required a higher skill set, additional training, and additional responsibility…and as a result paid a “living wage.”

These “living wage” articles and opinion pieces also focus on the jobs that require the least skill and that anyone can do, and that 99% that have that job don’t consider a career anyway. They never focus on, say, the jobs in that business that people do consider a career and actually pay a living wage.

Now, there are situations where employees are abused. People making commentary on this issue should stick to the issue. Focusing on McDonald’s line workers does a HUGE disservice to and discredits their argument.

 

[april32010]

If one wants to earn a "living wage: they need to acquire the skills to make them worth being paid a “living wage”

2434 A just wage is the legitimate fruit of work. To refuse or withhold it can be a grave injustice.221 In determining fair pay both the needs and the contributions of each person must be taken into account. “Remuneration for work should guarantee man the opportunity to provide a dignified livelihood for himself and his family on the material, social, cultural, and spiritual level, taking into account the role and the productivity of each, the state of the business, and the common good.”222 Agreement between the parties is not sufficient to justify morally the amount to be received in wages.

 

[powerofk]

"Ifone wants to earn a "living wage: they need to acquire the skills to make them worth being paid a “living wage”

That is true! There will always be those who aren’t able to but they should be by far the exception or we are in big trouble already. I don’t see how it benefits people to let them set a low bar for themselves.

Then we are in big trouble already. Many of these people working in low-end jobs actually DO have job skills that would help them get paid more than the minimum wage. There are engineers working on the fast-food lines in McDonald’s because they were laid off from their companies at the beginning of the recession. In many businesses, there is a stigma against hiring a person who was laid-off because many execs equate being laid-off as a synonym for being fired, when it simply means that the job was simply cut. And, these jobs are not coming back! Many companies have figured out how to increase production while not hiring more people. Plus, the longer a person has been out of a field, the harder it is to get hired back into the field. The US has a higher percentage of college graduates than ever before, and yet the number of entry-level positions for college graduates has been shrinking.

 

[estesbob]

Thank you for the cite from the Church on “just” wage. However I believe we were talking about a "living: wage. Should the teenager at McDonalds be paid less than the adult working the same job that who is married and has kids?

 

[aemcpa]

A living wage for a menial, unskilled job is not a “just wage”. It is an injustice against the employer.

 

[TheWarriorMonk]

Then we are in big trouble already. Many of these people working in low-end jobs actually DO have job skills that would help them get paid more than the minimum wage. There are engineers working on the fast-food lines in McDonald’s because they were laid off from their companies at the beginning of the recession. In many businesses, there is a stigma against hiring a person who was laid-off because many execs equate being laid-off as a synonym for being fired, when it simply means that the job was simply cut. And, these jobs are not coming back! Many companies have figured out how to increase production while not hiring more people. Plus, the longer a person has been out of a field, the harder it is to get hired back into the field. The US has a higher percentage of college graduates than ever before, and yet the number of entry-level positions for college graduates has been shrinking.

This is a separate issue; it’s due to poor economic policies of the U.S. government and/or the local municipalities (state, county, etc.). However, these adverse policies do make it more difficult for corporations to pay their employees higher wages.

 

[manualman]

And, by the way, mom and pop shops do the same thing…even though the psychology might appear to be different.

Yes and no. To a certain extent, it is a fundamental truth that it is easier for people to screw over other people they don’t know. If we compare a corporate department store manager eager to work his way up the chain into the regional corporate staff to a private shop owner, I’d suspect you’d find a MUCH bigger difference in attitude towards employees than you suspect. I’ve seen in in consulting where working for a corporate structure is a LOT different than working for the owner. In both cases, profit looms large in the boss’s mind, I grant you. But the latter is far less likely to fire you for somebody younger and cheaper after 20 years of working there than the former.

 

[april32010]

Thank you for the cite from the Church on “just” wage. However I believe we were talking about a "living: wage. Should the teenager at McDonalds be paid less than the adult working the same job that who is married and has kids?

yes

 

[TheWarriorMonk]

yes

Definitely not.

First, “just wages” doesn’t include discrimination. Second, discrimination should not become become public policy (excepting those that are handicapped in a way that prevents them from functioning in a normal way).

 

[april32010]

Definitely not.

First, “just wages” doesn’t include discrimination. Second, discrimination should not become become public policy (excepting those that are handicapped in a way that prevents them from functioning in a normal way).

papalencyclicals.net/Pius11/P11QUADR.HTM

1. In the first place, the worker must be paid a wage sufficient to support him and his family.[46] That the rest of the family should also contribute to the common support, according to the capacity of each, is certainly right, as can be observed especially in the families of farmers, but also in the families of many craftsmen and small shopkeepers. But to abuse the years of childhood and the limited strength of women is grossly wrong. Mothers, concentrating on household duties, should work primarily in the home or in its immediate vicinity. It is an intolerable abuse, and to be abolished at all cost, for mothers on account of the father’s low wage to be forced to engage in gainful occupations outside the home to the neglect of their proper cares and duties, especially the training of children. Every effort must therefore be made that fathers of families receive a wage large enough to meet ordinary family needs adequately. But if this cannot always be done under existing circumstances, social justice demands that changes be introduced as soon as possible whereby such a wage will be assured to every adult workingman. It will not be out of place here to render merited praise to all, who with a wise and useful purpose, have tried and tested various ways of adjusting the pay for work to family burdens in such a way that, as these increase, the former may be raised and indeed, if the contingency arises, there may be enough to meet extraordinary needs.

 

[aemcpa]

All of that is well and good, but it does not follow that the burden for ensuring that falls entirely on the employer. It is not just that a man should be paid more simply because he chooses to take responsibilities upon himself which he is not able to discharge. If a man has not spent his working years gaining the skills and experience that would prepare him to hold a job well above minimum wage that can support his family, certainly it does not fall to the employer to bear the burden of the injustice that that man has done to his wife and children.

 

[april32010]

vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_01051991_centesimus-annus_en.html8.

The Pope immediately adds another right which the worker has as a person. This is the right to a “just wage”, which cannot be left to the “free consent of the parties, so that the employer, having paid what was agreed upon, has done his part and seemingly is not called upon to do anything beyond”.23 It was said at the time that the State does not have the power to intervene in the terms of these contracts, except to ensure the fulfilment of what had been explicitly agreed upon. This concept of relations between employers and employees, purely pragmatic and inspired by a thorough-going individualism, is severely censured in the Encyclical as contrary to the twofold nature of work as a personal and necessary reality. For if work as something personal belongs to the sphere of the individual’s free use of his own abilities and energy, as something necessary it is governed by the grave obligation of every individual to ensure “the preservation of life”. “It necessarily follows”, the Pope concludes, “that every individual has a natural right to procure what is required to live; and the poor can procure that in no other way than by what they can earn through their work”.24

A workman’s wages should be sufficient to enable him to support himself, his wife and his children. “If through necessity or fear of a worse evil the workman accepts harder conditions because an employer or contractor will afford no better, he is made the victim of force and injustice”.25

Would that these words, written at a time when what has been called “unbridled capitalism” was pressing forward, should not have to be repeated today with the same severity. Unfortunately, even today one finds instances of contracts between employers and employees which lack reference to the most elementary justice regarding the employment of children or women, working hours, the hygienic condition of the work-place and fair pay; and this is the case despite the International Declarations and Conventions on the subject26 and the internal laws of States. The Pope attributed to the “public authority” the “strict duty” of providing properly for the welfare of the workers, because a failure to do so violates justice; indeed, he did not hesitate to speak of “distributive justice”.27

 

[markomalley]

papalencyclicals.net/Pius11/P11QUADR.HTM

vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_01051991_centesimus-annus_en.html8.

One thing that should be kept in mind with both of these citations was that they implied a wage dependent upon the worker’s family situation. In other words, the implication was that you would pay a family man more than a single man, and certainly more than a kid looking for money so he can go out on a date on Saturday.

JPII also discusses this in Laborem Exercens 19.

The idea also expressed in these documents is where men work and women raise the families and children concentrate on being kids.

But that arrangement is illegal, at least in the USA.

 

[april32010]

One thing that should be kept in mind with both of these citations was that they implied a wage dependent upon the worker’s family situation. In other words, the implication was that you would pay a family man more than a single man, and certainly more than a kid looking for money so he can go out on a date on Saturday.

JPII also discusses this in Laborem Exercens 19.

The idea also expressed in these documents is where men work and women raise the families and children concentrate on being kids.

But that arrangement is illegal, at least in the USA.

and thats the problem

 

[Ridgerunner]

Exactly true.

Providing everyone with a living wage doesn’t work in a capitalist system. FWIW, I used to work in such jobs (fast food, catering, etc.) when I was in college, and nobody was there expecting to make a “living wage.” In fast food, many of the employees working the line were either high school kids all college kids who were simply working there for pocket change. There were also some spouses (generally woman) that worked there for additional income and/or benefits. Nobody thought of working the line as a stand-alone career.

There were occasionally some people that enjoyed the work, and did turn it into a career. However, they went into management. But guess what…it required a higher skill set, additional training, and additional responsibility…and as a result paid a “living wage.”

These “living wage” articles and opinion pieces also focus on the jobs that require the least skill and that anyone can do, and that 99% that have that job don’t consider a career anyway. They never focus on, say, the jobs in that business that people do consider a career and actually pay a living wage.

Now, there are situations where employees are abused. People making commentary on this issue should stick to the issue. Focusing on McDonald’s line workers does a HUGE disservice to and discredits their argument.

I am put to mind of the young Hispanic men, both legal and illegal, who work in a lot of industries here, particularly in construction. They might live ten or more in a rental house built for one family, live on scrambled eggs, beans and weiners for months and months, save all their money then go back to their home countries “rich” by comparison. There they buy land, homes, stores, farms.

So, are they getting a “living wage here”? Depends on your perspective and how you think of time in the equation.

 

[TheWarriorMonk]

papalencyclicals.net/Pius11/P11QUADR.HTM

Now explain to me why the Catholic Church, and various associated entities, doesn’t pay a living wage to every employee, and discriminate on the basis one’s status in life (e.g, pay more for a parish receptionist that is married versus one that is single).

 

[TheWarriorMonk]

Furthermore, if you set up a society where the employer must pay different wages depending on the employee’s own personal needs, the unemployment will be skewed to those with family.

Let’s say you are a business owner. You need to hire four people to fill positions. You only have the resources to pay two people with families, or four people that are single. Now are you going to hire the two people with family, which results in understaffing and not being able to operate properly, or hire the four single people. It’s obvious what any business owner will do, Catholic or not.

 

[aemcpa]

The bottom line is that employers have an obligation to pay an employee what his labor is worth, and heads of families have an obligation to make their labor worth a sufficient amount to support their families by the acquisition of skills and experience.

 

[TheWarriorMonk]

The bottom line is that employers have an obligation to pay an employee what his labor is worth, and heads of families have an obligation to make their labor worth a sufficient amount to support their families by the acquisition of skills and experience.

Exactly.