I can not even imagine trying to live off that wage with children. I did it while I was living on my own, and paying off credit card debt. I have no idea how I survived.
It is a very bad wage for sure, but you can't get paid a high dollar amount for flipping burgers either. People should always strive for higher paying jobs.
Absolutely 100% accurate. I've seen it done locally in the past. Minimum wage goes up by government demand at our local "big business" and guess what? Within two weeks, a lot of the workers who had full time jobs are now part time. Why? Because they're not required to pay things like insurance on part time workers. The increases WILL come from the workers... the business rarely takes the hit itself. Now, disclaimer here... I have *no* idea with all this new insurance stuff, if it's still the same or not... maybe they're required to pay insurance for part time workers now, too... my statement is from what I know from the past and local workers being "demoted" to part time and losing insurance.
I think there is a ripple effect here that would cause some pretty big, and often overlooked, problems. If we start paying those in the low-skilled sectors as much as those in specialized fields, something is going to have to change. The money to pay employees more doesn't magically show up; it has to come from somewhere.
There will be a huge ripple if employers are forced to pay more for any job than they are comfortable with. You have to remember business stay in business because of their ability to make a certain amount of profit. If a business is forced to pay more in anything, two things typically happened. They will make cutbacks which usually means lower quality of service and, yes, even fire employees. The other option they have are raise prices on their products in order to try to make the same amount of profit. A lot of times companies will do both. So there is a very fine line to walk with dealing with these type of situations these days.
WOW! I just finally took the time to read this link. So McD's workers are striking for $15.00 an hour. I'm not sure if it changed much from last summer, but the median hourly wage a year ago for EMT's and Paramedics was just a few cents more than that. Uh... wow. Substitute teachers mean hourly wage was a little over $14 during that same time period. And if I'm not mistaken, nurses and orderlies are lower than that. I'll be watching to see how this plan of theirs works out for sure. Can't see it happening.
Silliness. Even if it would be raised from $7.25 to a reasonable (operative word there) $8.25 or $9.00, as one example, it wouldn't be outrageous. But something like this? When some teachers and nurses and first responders are making less? I say get real. Do these people KNOW what would happen if McD's is suddenly forced to pay $15 an hour? (I'm not even convinced this is a real news story but it sounds real.) "Welcome to McDonalds, would you like to try our seven dollar daily special of a small order of fries?" Wonder if the strike is still on for Thursday? It's embarrassing.
It's not about paying the low qualified workers as much as the qualified ones, it's just giving a decent salary to people who work hard instead of making the management and the owners billionaires.
I think the problem is with what the various parties consider a decent salary. This is McDonalds workers striking to make as much as many emergency service workers are making... or sub teachers. When they do something like this, it makes it (I'd think, just guessing) a lot harder to get a reasonable pay hike that isn't outrageous. I'm thinking if you want to be taken seriously, you don't try to jump fro $7.25 to $15.00 by striking. Who gets more than double current wage in a raise?!