McDonald's boss says he's "proud" of wages as thousands of workers call for a rise

What happens when minimum wage is raised to say $15/hr? Those at $15/hr are still on the bottom of the earnings spectrum, and the economy around them will soon adjust. Not only will prices where they are working at rise in order to cover the increased labor cost, the price for consumer staples and other things minimum wage earners spend money on (I'll refrain from listing examples) will rise as more dollars begin to chase those goods. All this does is give them a momentary bump, and then back down to nothing. An increase like this won't improve their situation, it'll just move their bottoming out point off into the future. The only way this could work is if one fast food company pays $15/hr and no one else does. Then that company will get the best of the best and the complainers who lobbied for the hike will either have to compete their ass off to keep their jobs or be drummed out the back door.

 

I think it's difficult to use Switzerland as a good representation. It's a heavy services economy for one, and a lot of the manufacturing they are involved in is high-margin, highly-specialised sectors such as Pharmaceuticals. And in order to do that a large percentage of its skilled workforce are migrant workers.

It's also an incredibly small country - smaller than most people think, with its economy only based around 2-3 cities, and very expensive to live. China's coming from a different direction - starting from an unskilled, industrializing base. It's very difficult to imagine a US or a Germany positioning itself as such.

 

McDonalds is a company that uses all the existing legislation to profit from low wages and to create a new concept of part-time, including room games for the employees to wait until the next shift. So congratulations on this McDonalds.

 

In my mind unskilled jobs at Mcdonald is entry level. If you want a higher pay then you need to apply elsewhere. There is no future in Mcdonalds unless you plan to become a manager or something. By almost doubling people current hourly wage you will put Mcdonalds in the poor house. They will not turn a profit and will have to shut down operations. Simple math.

 

I'm against raising the minimum wage [doubling it as it has been suggested] not just for McDonald workers. Should everyone [unskilled workers] get a raise, for the businesses they work for to make profits the cost of everything would go up. That would defeat the purpose of getting the raise in the first place. Inflation-adjusted minimum wages would be the better solution to all this IMHO.

 

That's the core of the capitalist system Rainman that has made a few billionaires and millions of poor people, so that you agree with that is surprising because people are not unskilled because they choose that.

 

Yeah, and the bigger problem is that while these are small businesses and locally owned, they are also franchised and are required to do a lot of things. Two big things are national promotions and pricing. For the most part, franchise owners are NOT free to raise their prices or ignore national promotions.

The is a public perception problem, and ironically you have social justice warriors who know nothing about the industry, about the franchise structure or about business at all leading the charge to raise the minimum wage without realizing they are going to end up hurting the people they are trying to help. Not only will more people lose their job, but they are also going to make it more prohibitive for new restaurants to open. Right now, there are probably dozens of businessmen thinking about starting a new restaurant.. if those people are in a state that is flirting with making a giant jump in minimum wage, those investors and small business owners are going to take a pass... and now you have 50 jobs not created.

 

That is true, they are franchises, so their profits depend on what the local business does, but I don't think that no one is saying a big jump in payroll, but something more acceptable for the work provided.

 

minimum wage has been going up steadily for 50 years, basically at the pace of inflation. But the movement that is underway is almost calling for doubling the minimum wage in one moment. Washington and LA took it from $10 to $15 overnight. And the problem is these social justice warriors think it is no big deal because McDonalds is this huge faceless corporation. But instead, the ones who are getting crushed by this are the guys we should be admiring.. the guy who worked his way up from fry guy, and finally saved enough to buy his first restaurant. That business owner has now seen a big part of his expsenses has skyrocketed. ( wages are 40% of expenses for most fast food places). The guys that only own a couple restaurants are the ones getting crushed.... this barely impacts the national ´mcdonalds´at all. since... and I almost guarantee this... they are getting some tax breaks by lobbying congress and getting a sympathetic lawmaker to spare them. But the individual franchise owner will be the one getting hit.