Obamabots defending the Democrats?

No the neverwillbe's defending the 1%.

Why let the correction of the story get in the way? :zz:

criticisms of something doesn't automatically equal defense of something else. it's not an either/or. i'm sorry you can't learn that, or refuse to accept it.


there is NO reason why, in this land of abundance, anyone who works should be needing govt handouts because their wage is lower than it ought to be.
corporations receive tax breaks, have tax shelters, get subsidized, announce record profits, pay their fat cat upper level management millions, but can't pay an adequate wage.
too many ebenezers, too many bob cratchits. and all of us in the middle support both thru our tax dollars.

God save my soul - I'm actually agreeing with Joey and Dell :eek:


Zig, I'm seeing this as a realtively simplistic view. In principle, yes the appearance in this story is that the working poor need handouts in order to feed their families.

But to stand back an look objectively at the circumstance, I see a larger issue, and one that feeds directly into this entitlement culture which we've found ourselves in.

When we were coming up, after HS you either went to college, learned a trade, or went to work. there were generations upon generations of Detrioters born with a umbilical cord tied to the pension funds of GM, Ford, Chrysler. They were not going to school, they knew they could graduate and get a lifetime job with great benefits on the line. they would not live in a mansion, but would do just fine, so long as they kept their nose clean. It was there for them. The same way with trade Unions, and of course college grads.

Who worked in department/grocery stores/fast food restaurants? High schoolers, retirees, etc. Those jobs were and still are unskilled part time jobs for the most part. No one ever thought in a million years that running a cash register was a "career option", with beneifts and a wage capable of supporting a household.

Fast forward 30 years, and now look. Not only are people being praised for working at Walmart, but they are expecting to get paid like they're actually providing a skilled service to the community. Maybe the guaranteed lifetime employment opportunities are no longer around in abundance like they were back then, but you still need to apply yourself in order to enjoy a lifestyle you wish to live.

An electrician, for example, who graduated high school and went to trade school and work his way up as an apprentice shouldn't have to pay 10.00 for a Big Mac just because the HS drop out fry cook needs to make the same living wage as he to support a family.

I'm sure the guidance counselor at school never advised them that a Greeter at Walmart is a solid career choice.

These are, by and large, personal decisions that people make with respect to how they are choosing to live their lives. You do not have the right to pop out 4 kids and expect your cash register job to front the bill for it. So when you do, expect to go to the food bank to feed yourself, and stop blaming your employer.

Well put:tro:

my point is that in the old days, minimum wage was a living wage. it's not now. and the jobs have changed in this country over the last however many years. altho we still lead the world in manufacturing, we have less manufacturing jobs, and a lot more automation.
it's not that we have less skilled people, it's that many jobs no longer exist, due to sending work overseas, cutting staff and having people do more to cover the slack..
as for mcdonalds workers and wal-mart, a lot of those employees have college education in their background. they don't have a job in that field tho. it's a stereotype of the minimum wage earner to say they are all dropouts, with lots of kids.
mcdonals minimum wage used to mean something, it doesn't anymore. it's not because the work force isn't as smart, but because corporations have managed to keep the minimum wage from rising along with everything else.
we require people to work at wal-mart, mcdonalds and the like, don't we? how do we then blame them for working there, when they work in a necessary job?
we as taxpayers support them. wouldn't it be better if mcdonalds had, say, $3 billion less in profit, and paid a living wage (not a high on the hog wage, but an actual living wage) so that us taxpayers weren't on the hook, supporting people who are working. bad enough we have to support those who don't work.

We'll have to just agree to disagree on this one. I don't recall the minimum wage ever being a living wage. Ever. It applies to jobs that anyone can do and is targeted specifically to the unskilled labor market - again, almost exclusively to teens and retirees - folks that do not need health insurance or benefits.

Furthermore there is a plenty of work if you are willing to go after it. If someone has a college education, and is choosing to work a minimum wage job over making some sacrifices (temporary relocation, entry level position to develop experience, etc.) then that's on them.

I moved from the Marcellus shale region of western PA / West VA and I can tell you anyone with a pulse can make a small fortune there right now - they can't build motels fast enough to accommodate the demand for labor there - similar stories around Minot ND - in fact a friend of mine who had been out of work in his field of expertise just returned from there, and now has enough money to start his own business here.

So I'm not buying it. Yes, it's tough, but there is great paying work if you're willing to go to it. It's may not be convenient, but there is no guarantees in life.

i posted a link a few weeks ago about the minimum wage, the paper was from a couple economists. it used to keep people above the poverty line, but no more. it hasn't kept pace over the years with inflation, etc. but then, neither have other wages, except for that at the top.
so, what once kept people from having to get aid no longer does.
and yes, there are jobs in places like north dakota. the trick is getting people there.
if someone can't make enough money to buy food, how do you expect them to get to north dakota?

i'll find that link.

here you go. lots of charts, etc.

http://www.epi.org/publication/bp357...wage-increase/

■Those who would see wage increases do not fit some of the stereotypes of minimum-wage workers.
■Women would be disproportionately affected, comprising 56 percent of those who would benefit.
■Over 88 percent of workers who would benefit are at least 20 years old.
■Although workers of all races and ethnicities would benefit from the increase, non-Hispanic white workers comprise the largest share (about 54 percent) of those who would be affected.
■About 44 percent of affected workers have at least some college education.
■Around 55 percent of affected workers work full time, 70 percent are in families with incomes of less than $60,000, more than a quarter are parents, and over a third are married.
■The average affected worker earns about half of his or her family’s total income

rudeboy, i hope you read over that whole paper, and take note of the majority of people that would be affected (not teens) etc.

Actually, doubling the wages of every employee of all McDonald's (including the execs) would raise the price of a Big Mac to a little over $5.00:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/0...n_3672006.html

And considering the calorie bombs that are Big Macs, that's more than enough food for a single meal. $5.00 for a lunch is not very expensive.

I'm always fascinated by how low-income workers are always lazy slackers with too many kids who don't deserve any sort of financial security, but people like the Walton family, who did nothing other than get born to a particular guy, are upstanding individuals entitled to every penny they squeeze out of that underpaid work force. It's a cognitive dissonance in Americans I just don't understand.

http://gawker.com/the-simple-path-to...art-1467622860

There's this attitude that anything to raise stock prices and dividends is of course morally superior to paying workers a living wage, because filling the pockets of people who already have more money than they will ever spend is far more morally important that ensuring that the people who are the actual engine of the economy have money to keep that engine running by spending it on food, fuel and necessities.

The wealthy spend a much, much smaller percentage of their income than do the middle class- they end up hoarding large amounts of money, thus removing it from the economy. And there aren't enough wealthy people to make up for all of the middle class people who have now slid into the lower class and do not have disposable income. We are destroying our own nation in order to cater to the plutocrats. AND we are subsidizing them while we do it, because large numbers of Wal Mart employees are on government programs. So even people like me, who don't shop at Wal Mart, are supporting Wal Mart via our tax dollars, so the Waltons can hoard even more money. Yay!

i saw video from a congressional hearing that said they'd have to raise the price of a burger .06 cents. wow.

so, we want people to work instead of having them on welfare. but when people work, they still have to get welfare, because their living wage isn't one.
we say they're uneducated-but evidence shows that's not the case. and even if it was, since we use these goods and services, there's a demand for people to fill these jobs-and then we can demand they make squat? so we don't pay much for a burger, but we pay taxes to pick up the slack?
meanwhile, we subsidize the farmers, the corporations, we give tax breaks, incentives, etc, etc ad nauseum to these corporations....so we subsidize then, and their workers, and we also buy their stuff.
yeah, makes sense.
i did my shift at the food pantry this evening, which is always a bit disheartening. me and another volunteer were talking about how we pay farmers not to grow food, while people go hungry.

McDonalds solution to their employees holiday struggles. Chutzpah part Deux.

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/201...presents-cash/

"stop complaining, it raises your stress level" :zz:

wow!

Let's see, a crew of 10 workers at $3.00 more an hour in wages would be $30/hr. in new wages. Dividing $30 by .06 cents gives us 500. (50 burgers per worker)

So your 'video' is true only if the McDonalds in question is turning out 500 burgers per 10 workers as an average. 12K burgers in a 24hr period or 84K/week. 4.3 million per year!!

In other words don't believe everything you see/hear/read. Let me guess the above video came from a congressman/woman pushing a minimum wage increase? In fact it kind of sounds Wasserman/Schiltz like.

Yes del they should STFU because somewhere in the world someone is willing to work for a quarter of that minimum wage and mcDonalds et all will continue lobbying efforts to get those people here to work.:zz:

How about presenting facts?

Hard to argue over fantasies as everyone has a different one.

Would .30 to .40 cents per burger instead of .06 cents ruined the argument?

Let them raise prices, isn't that what capitalism is about setting prices that your customer is willing to pay? They raise them too much and someone will undercut them and eat their lunch so to speak. Why do all arguments forget this basic tenant when it comes to employees getting more money?

FYI
CEO make 8.75 million a year which by the way would take a line worker 114 years working 24x7 365 to equal. Maybe he can take a paycut.

saw this link referenced:

http://gothamist.com/2013/10/24/mcdo...paid_worke.php


i am disgusted.

the article i just linked said over 12 million.
they made a four freaking BILLION dollar profit last year. it's horseshit that they can't afford to pay more.

i think we should remove their tax breaks and other incentives, etc that they receive to equal the amount of federal aid their employees receive.
the woman in the link above, has worked for mcd's ten years-not one raise in that entire time.

and then there's this:

McDonald's leaves taxpayers responsible for $1.2 billion annually (on a national scale) with YUM! Brands (KFC, Taco Bell, etc.) costing taxpayers $648 million annually. Even more staggering, the McDonald's corporation raked in $5.46 billion last year in profits with an extra $5.5 billion in dividends and stock buyback; they also pay their CEO Donald Thompson $13.7 million per year.


so, with the dividend portion, their profit was 11 billion?! in one year.

poor mcdonalds, they just can't afford to pay their employees more. i bet if they ran one less commercial a day, they could scrape up some extra cash.

This simply documents the rise in the # of baby boomers entering the work force from 1968 to present day. Yes, supply and demand dictates pricing/wages. When low/no skilled jobs are in abundance, the wages lower.

When there are too many unskilled laborers than there are unskilled jobs, the wages are lower.

They should be. That's how it's supposed to work.

How about addressing the problem, rather than blaming employers for it?

It is not an employer's responsibility to float the economy by overcharging their customers for products and services in order to make sure someone working the fryer at Mcdonalds in Queens can afford to live in an apartment.

This has been going on for almost 50 years, yet it has just been in recent times (the last 10 years or so) that there has been this clamoring of entitlement.

Somehow people who make irresponsible choices and who then provide little to no value to the society they occupy need to be compensated on the same level as those that take responsibility for themselves.

I'll say it again - NOBODY worked these jobs expecting to raise a family or even take care of themselves off the wages. As a kid, I worked countless minimum wage jobs - KFC to Golden Corral to stock boy in a grocery to lot attendant on car lots. EVERYBODY, with the exception of the managers, were there to make a few bucks - never in a million years expecting that the wages would sustain us - it's laughable. They were part time jobs, after school and on the weekends. the college students worked their class schedule and filled in when they didn't have class or needed to study. The Retirees typically worked the day shifts when the rest of us were in school.

Now, you have a generation of people, that have decided that this is all they want to do with themselves, and the onus is now on the employers to compensate them at an absurd rate in order for them to do so.

Let's try this - instead of demanding that employers overpay for your unskilled services, how about get an education, learn a trade, serve in the military to learn relateable civilian job skills and actually improve your life instead of forcing someone to give you a hand out?

And the rest of the story.

$5.46 billion was the net income on sales. There is no 'extra'.

If you go down MCD Annual Income Statement http://www.marketwatch.com/investing...mcd/financials you'll also see they paid $1.32 billion in domestic income tax with another $150.4 million deferred.

Now you want to count extra's? McD's did $27.5 billion in sales. With the aggregate of say 5% sales tax added that's another $1.375 billion in taxes.

There are 13,000 locations in the U.S. With a annual real estate tax on each store of at least $30K that's another 390 million.

Now with the average owner reportedly taking home $200K per year and of course having to pay income tax of 34% that's another $68K a store or another $884 million per year.

So while a 'study' shows McDonalds employees receive $1.2 billion in benefits because of low wages, facts show McDonald's pays over $4.1 billion a year in taxes (not even considering capital gains tax for McD's investors)

Furthermore 5.46 billion profit on $27.57 billion in sales is 19.8 cents for every dollar collected. Meanwhile $4.1 billion in taxes represents 14.8 cents for every dollar collected. McDonalds, develops, buys, transports, prepares, sells and cleans up for their 20 cents. What does the government do for their 15 cents?

Nice living collecting $4.1 billion, giving back $1.2 billion and doing nothing but billing for it. With a whole legion of misinformed cheering for more.

And McD's is evil. :zz:

there's no way you read that study. else you'd know that many of the people working in lower wage jobs are educated, are skilled, are raising families, and aren't the teenie boppers you take them to be.
you'd also know that all wages, not just minimum wages are less than they should be.
i don't find 10 an hour to be absurd at all. we demand people work, they get jobs that pay squat, and then they still get federal aid because their corporations don't pay more than is required. which means we support them. you decry people needing support, and then you defend their low pay.
my husband works at the paper mill. lots of production hands there who make good money, and are no more educated or skilled than the guy working the fryer at mcdonalds. but they make good money. they watch toilet paper go by. the machine does all the work. i doubt there's some sort of magic going on that says if you watch toilet paper get made, your company can afford to pay you almost triple minimum wage, but if you make a burger, they can't afford to pay you...while making billions upon billions in profit, while us taxpayers take up the slack between a wage just above poverty and one below.

and little to no value? if people didn't work at mcd's and all these other places-tell me, who would cook millions of peoples meals every day?

the study discusses at length the positive impacts a min. wage hike would have on the economy.

let's put this another way.

mcdonalds makes billions in profits.

i don't. i don't even make millions, not even tens of thousands in profit.

mcdonalds shouldn't have to pay a living wage.

i should be happy subsidizing their employees by paying taxes that fund food stamps, housing assistance, medicaid, etc?

really?

i vehemently disagree.

but that is the current system. people defend billionaires and their pay scales.
i guess this is the same mindset that says let's pay farmers not to grow crops, and then wonder how to feed the hungry.

McDonalds paid $1.47 billion in taxes (w/o even considering ancillary taxes) on profits of $5.46 billion, making an effective rate of 27%.

Obama/the government spent $2 billion destroying cars over a two month period. A billion a year to Pakistan, another couple billion to Egypt, and a unknown amount to Al Qaida linked Syrian rebels and you're mad at Mickey D's? :zz:

Ever hear of the Ronald McDonald house(s)?

BTW How much are we still out on the GM deal?

Aunt Sally

Squirrel !!!!

Going to do McDonald's for lunch today for a first hand look as honestly other than a drive-thru coffee once every two months (love my Dunkin coffee) I don't visit.

Anxious to order from a person with some college rather than just some high school. :)

Dunkin coffee tastes like chemicals

If that McDonald's is in Florida, you will have about a 99% chance of being served by a HS drop out with a neck tattoo, than a college grad that "hasn't found their niche" yet.

"Niche" being VP at a Fortune 500 company ;)

i'd love to see a citation on that 99% chance.

■Over 88 percent of workers who would benefit are at least 20 years old.
■About 44 percent of affected workers have at least some college education.


or you can ignore the facts and stick with your preconceived notions of who works in fast food.


Minimum-wage workers are older and, as discussed later, have greater family responsibilities than commonly portrayed. The facts do not support the perception of minimum-wage workers as primarily teenagers working for spending money (though even if true, it would not justify paying teens subpoverty wages).

the corresponding chart showed that 11.7% of workers who would be affected by a min. wage increase are under age 20. that means 88.3% aren't teens.



Data on educational attainment of those who would be affected by a minimum-wage increase further dispel the misperception of minimum-wage workers as high school students. In fact, nationally just 21.3 percent of those who would be affected have less than a high school degree, while fully 43.8 percent have some college education, an associate degree, or a bachelor’s degree or higher.

The immediate benefits of a minimum-wage increase are in the boosted earnings of the lowest-paid workers, but its positive effects would far exceed this extra income. Recent research reveals that, despite skeptics’ claims, raising the minimum wage does not cause job loss.6 In fact, throughout the nation, a minimum-wage increase under current labor market conditions would create jobs. Like unemployment insurance benefits or tax breaks for low- and middle-income workers, raising the minimum wage puts more money in the pockets of working families when they need it most, thereby augmenting their spending power. Economists generally recognize that low-wage workers are more likely than any other income group to spend any extra earnings immediately on previously unaffordable basic needs or services.

Increasing the federal minimum wage to $10.10 by July 1, 2015, would give an additional $51.5 billion over the phase-in period to directly and indirectly affected workers,7 who would, in turn, spend those extra earnings. Indirectly affected workers—those earning close to, but still above, the proposed new minimum wage—would likely receive a boost in earnings due to the “spillover” effect (Shierholz 2009), giving them more to spend on necessities.

This projected rise in consumer spending is critical to any recovery, especially when weak consumer demand is one of the most significant factors holding back new hiring (Izzo 2011).8 Though the stimulus from a minimum-wage increase is smaller than the boost created by, for example, unemployment insurance benefits, it has the crucial advantage of not imposing costs on the public sector.

I'd like to see the citation that shows 43.8% of the store workers at MacDonalds have not only graduated HS, but managed to earn a B.S. or at least attended undergraduate schooling.

Please feel free to revisit my previous posts. I compared minimum wage jobs of 30 years ago to the current climate. Of course there are more adults working these jobs but that directly correlates to the number of adults that chose to forgo their education. Only 3/4ths of kids in high school graduate. The number of those that go on to higher education, compared to other developed nations, is staggeringly low.

That is not McDonald's nor Walmart's nor anyone else who employs minimum wage worker's fault. They should not be required to increase the prices of their goods and services to inflate the compensation of these folks that made these choices.

When I go to McDonalds, I see a couple of shift managers (who most likely graduated HS and possibly attended Community College), a bunch of kids, and an equal amount of 20 somethings that don't look like they even know what day it is, but have managed to earn enough cash to tattoo every inch of their bodies. Hey, your world, who am i to judge?

Sorry, but that is the impression that is left.

Walmart is not much different. Though more uneducated middle aged people than teenagers appear to work there. I see people who were probably day laborers during the construction boom stocking shelves, low level office workers during the mortgage boom manning the cash registers, etc. - now working these jobs. They, by and large, have no formal education and obviously did not excel when they did have a menial office job nor impress a construction foreman to be brought back when work began to slowly trickle back in. Which is fine. this is their fit, and they are most likely excelling at it. But that is what it is - it is not a 10.00 an hour job. and employers needn't be held hostage with a proverbial gun to their head to give that to them.

When the market dictates that wages increase, then you will see it. When Walmart can't run a store because they are losing employees to a competitor due to wages, they will increase wages. How it works.

Unfortunately you have a generation of unskilled labor at the ready, so i doubt it happens anytime soon.

again, rude, would you rather a multi billion dollar corporation pay a living wage, like they used to, or would you prefer we continue to subsidize these workers with rent assistance, housing allowances, food stamps, etc? gun to it's head. that's hilarious.

as for impressions...i'll take cold, hard facts from people who study this over impressions, bias, feelings and beliefs any day.

as for the market-i doubt the market has ever dictated. these companies for the most part will try to get away with everything they possibly can.

i think it's a disgrace, for example, that the base wage for a tipped employee hasn't been changed since it was set in 1991. 22 years ago.
you telling me the market bears out keeping that amount?

you can't go by what you think, and one should never judge a book by its cover. i'd imagine people i deal with think i have a college degree plus. i don't.


corporations have seen taxes lowered, subsidies granted, etc, etc. in turn, with all the breaks they've gotten from the pols they pay off, they in turn should pay a correct wage, based on years of indicators and facts.
but yeah, let mcdonalds and the like keep making billions of dollars while the middle class keeps supporting everyone. that's fair.

Well maybe not that bad..but to my old taster Mc's is still best coffee and Hardee's is close since they went to 100% columbian..:tro:
Been to starbucks 2 or 3 times in my life. don't like exotics they serve or their regular...and 50c mcs vs 3 bucks starbucks..nolo contesto IMVHO..