(08-22-2022 08:34 AM)Frizzy Owl Wrote:  

(08-22-2022 08:08 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(08-21-2022 07:21 PM)Frizzy Owl Wrote:  

(08-21-2022 03:12 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(08-21-2022 12:46 PM)Frizzy Owl Wrote:  What’s created the imbalance that you mention is government efforts to make up the difference between wages of jobs that were originally intended for part-time and transitional jobs, and a wage needed by a head-of-household. The fast food industry offers inexpensive food in a simple setting, with the plan of keeping costs low by not offering career jobs. By design, fast food jobs were for students, people looking for part-time work, etc. Progressives demonize the industry for doing what it was always designed to do; if they succeed all they will accomplish is ensuring that nobody has those jobs.

Is there not a difference between a career job and a job that can afford basic necessities?

I’m not going to get drawn into one of your exercises in semantic hairsplitting. A high school student working at McDonalds does not need that job to be a career. His “basic necessities” are gas money and such. Wasn’t I clear enough? Let me repeat: fast food work was never imtended as a way to make a living. I would define “making a living” as “affording basic necessities.” No doubt you have some elusive and elastic definition.

Yikes - a bit prickly there.

The way I read your previous comment, it sounded to me like you were saying that these fast food jobs were not meant as a career, which I view differently in terms of what kind of income and lifestyle that affords vs a job that can afford basic necessities. A career is the type of job that is long term, can support a family, pay for retirement, etc.

The issue that I have with your (and OO's) perspective that a job like flipping burgers is only meant to cover a limited about of basic necessities (as you say, those of a high school student that doesn't have to pay for housing or other living expenses) is that it ignores the reality of the real world. If anything, these jobs can't be only staffed by high schoolers who have some of their costs met.

Furthermore, if these types of jobs are meant to be transitionary (which makes sense and I agree with), then they need to provide sufficient wages to allow someone to find a more stable and fruitful career. If they pay so low that someone can't afford to live, how will they be able to transition out of the transitionary job and into a career?

I don't think flipping burgers is a career, but I do think someone willing to flip burgers for 40 hours a week should earn a wage that doesn't subject them to poverty if they make sound financial decisions.

The poverty line for an individual is $13590/year. That's $7/hour for a 50-week year. McDonald's pays more than that. How much more is "right", in your mind? Should they make as much as a mailman? A carpenter? Why?

How does anyone transition into a career? It starts by making a better choices. You really think fast-food corporations should be solving the social situations behind bad life choices? We're in trouble if it's up to McDonalds to solve societal ills. Meanwhile, McDonalds is a business model that is not intended to lift people out of poverty or even to provide them permanent and long-term employment. They do what they do. Why are you looking to them for social engineering?

I don't think McDonald's alone should lift people out of poverty - I think they, and other low-skilled jobs, should pay their workers sufficiently so that they have the means to not be stuck in poverty. I understand why McDonald's doesn't want to raise wages unless they're forced to by the government or a tight labor market - but I don't like that our policies have basically allowed them to underpay employees while tax payers support that via welfare.

The federal minimum wage is $7.25, making $14,500 per year working full time before any taxes - just above that established poverty line. That's $1,208 per month. There is no way someone can live off of that without assistance for housing, food, and/or medical, yet they still are technically above the poverty line.

We as a society have decided that people who are poor and living in poverty should not starve or go without housing. With the recent labor market tightening, employers like McDonald's have actually increased wages above the minimum wage, after decades of generally sitting idly by as the federal minimum wage stayed stagnant.

The comparison of the wages of burger flipper to the wages of a mailman is a superfluous argument - the question is what kind of quality of life should someone be granted if they are working 40 hours per week in any industry. We seem to differ on what that floor should be.