Minimum Wage and McBudgets

[RandBlade]

That's illegal in the UK. SSP is a legal requirement - no contractual exceptions.

[Flixy]

Ditto to everything Veldan said.

Flexible contracts have advantages for both employer and employee. And allow us to rapidly increase hours if need be and not just decrease them - whereas if you were contractually required to offer the increase forever you'd avoid signing it. It also allows us to keep staff like uni students on file rather than having to terminate employment.

In any business I've known with flexible contracts it is the employees far more than the managers who are requesting changes. I've spent more time than I'd want to think trying to keep everyone happy because they've got a party they JUST MUST go to next week or it'll be social suicide. Most managers would like nothing more than keeping the schedules simple and repetitive and not be the most complicated jigsaw puzzle ever. Actually its "I can't come in tomorrow" normally by the time I get informed they want the day off not even next week.

Oh, I understand, trust me. Which is why my boss decreed that ones schedules are set (usually the friday before), if you want any change, you're going to have to swap your shift yourself with a colleague. Works pretty well that way.
Flixy ... I'm shocked that "sick = no pay" for you. Here if you work variable hours (which are getting denigrated as zero hour contracts) your eligibility to Statutory Sick Pay is determined based on your average wages. Specifically whether you've earned enough to go above a tax threshold (currently £109 per week). Work above the threshold and it doesn't matter what the contract says. Work below the threshold and again the contract makes no difference.

https://www.gov.uk/statutory-sick-pay/eligibility

SSP pays nothing if you're only sick a day to three but that's again nothing to do with contracts (its so you don't get paid for throwing a sickie I believe).[/QUOTE]I was speaking only of short sickness, a day or two or so. Which is pretty annoying moneywise since I work ~12 hours a week, so if you miss a full day, that's relatively much. BTW, getting 87 pounds a week is also a bad thing if you work more than 14 hours a week on minimum wage. Over here it's apparently 70% of your normal wages, over the average of hours you've worked in the months before, with minimum wage as the minimum (so if you are paid minimum wage, you'll get 100%). Also only kicks in after a few days (which makes sense, like you say).

Variable hours is not exactly the same as zero hour contract, by the way. I mean, it can be, but there are other types of variable contracts too. And it doesn't just apply on minimum wage type jobs, either, for example my job gets paid 40% more than minimum, plus some nice bonuses.

edit: from what I can tell, over here the sick pay stuff also depends per job sector, and generally is only available after you've worked there for at least 6 months. After that you're basically considered to be employed with a contract for the average hours you actually work. And I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of young people with temp jobs don't even know about this (I didn't) and never get it simply because they didn't know. The only place I know around here who actively approaches you to get you to claim your money from them is the tax agency.

[GGT]

I don't see the imminent collapse of American society. Do you?

I wouldn't want to hazard a guess. Do you know or are you just making crass assumptions?

I don't know how many McDonald's franchises have actually gone "bankrupt" in the US. It's a rather complicated history of corporate buy-outs, franchising, trademark and brand name rights, and RE holdings that trace back to the 50's. (see Ray Kroc) I don't think it's an understatement to say that (since McDonald's became a multi-national mega-corporation) very few, if any, US franchises have gone bust. Even if a restaurant was in a "bad" location, say, due to expanded highways, that doesn't mean it wasn't profitable.

And when calculating average income its worth bearing in mind that any franchisee could just as easily not invest and create dozens of jobs and instead just put their savings in bonds and make interest from that at far less risk and headache.

Sure. But how does that justify paying poverty wages to their employees?

Bullshit! I'm not even going to ask for a source on that as I know you're making that up, but feel free to provide one.

It's public record, and has been sourced by news agencies (like WSJ and Business Insider). But if you don't believe them, feel free to check out McDonald's Corporation applications for buying, and financing, a franchise.

People who are so independently wealthy as to avoid any risk aren't the sort who become franchisees. Secondly just because a franchise costs a million dollars doesn't mean that someone who goes into it is a multi-millionaire. To get a franchise is just like buying a house, you need a percentage of the cash as capital and the bank provides the rest. Do you believe anyone "buying a [house] for a million dollars has financing and collateral requirements to avoid" losing it? Houses provide a lot less risk and require a lot less in spending, wages, taxes etc to maintain.

Bad comparison. Banks are notorious for approving bad business (and mortgage) loans, because of fees as incentives.

How do you think people raise the funds to get a franchise? They put in their life savings, remortgage their house etc and then put that in as a deposit to get the rest of the bank financing. Its a serious risk they're taking that can leave them penniless and homeless if it goes wrong.

As a general rule, McDonald's Inc. doesn't approve a franchise purchase with that kind of collateral. The housing and mortgage markets add another level of "risk" that can't protect their brand. Might be why so few McDonald's franchises go out of business, shutter their windows, or get bought out by other fast-food brands?

McDonald's don't want independently wealthy people who don't care to become franchisees, they want franchisees who will devote heart and soul into managing the business well as its their sole livelihood.

Even if you think that's their corporate mission (which I'd challenge), that does not mean it's acceptable to pay poverty wages for full-time workers when it's their second job.

No the issues that are irrelevant are all the spin you throw out that has nothing to do with affordability. How many unskilled workers do you personally pay $15 an hour to? Are you running a business putting your own money where your mouth is?

Well, since you asked, I pay a "skilled" handy man $25/hour for basic electric, plumbing, and masonry needs around my house. Cash, tax free. I pay "unskilled" workers for landscape and seasonal work about the same, especially when it entails manual labor (like hand shoveling 3 feet of snow from the sidewalk and driveway).

Just think about what you're proposing for a moment OK?

You've got - according to you - a situation where most of your job opportunities are coming from the sorts of companies that pay minimum wages ... then you want to double those wages and destroy the main source of job growth the economy has!? What!?

I've proposed raising national minimum wage to correspond with inflation and COL --- around $10/hour. More than President Obama's proposal of $9.50 and less than demands for $15. That would only be a "doubling" in agricultural and food services who aren't even being paid the current federal minimum of $7.25/hour (because they're exempt)!

Are you seriously thinking that by destroying what you think the main source of job growth is you'll manage to avoid the fate of other nations to do that which is simply penury and destitution for millions of unemployed? Smart move there! The "sustainable" model of economic growth entails NOT destroying the main source of that growth. Once you've made youth unemployment 62.5% like Greece what do you plan to do next?

My turn to say you're conflating issues? The US won't "become Greece" by updating minimum wages to reflect COL, or turning a working wage into a living wage. Quite the opposite, in fact. If more people are working at poverty wages, and need government subsidies to afford food, housing, utilities, education, healthcare........that's when we risk becoming a "welfare state".

At a time when corporate profits are at all-time highs, and the top 10% are making out like gangbusters (while the middle class languishes and the poor become poorer), it doesn't make sense to cut corporate taxes, high-income tax rates, or eliminate public services. If trickle-down economics actually worked as well in practice, as it does in theory, we wouldn't be in this current jam. But here we are.

[Aimless]

Last I heard less than about 5% of McD franchisees go out of business and startup requirements include among other things the ability to make a significant down-payment in the vicinity of $300k-$500k. I don't think McD is representative of restaurants in general.

[Enoch the Red]

Sure. But how does that justify paying poverty wages to their employees?

Even if you think that's their corporate mission (which I'd challenge), that does not mean it's acceptable to pay poverty wages for full-time workers when it's their second job.

I'm sorry, but why is it not acceptable to pay somebody a wage that was agreed upon by both parties?

[Nessus]

I'm sorry, but why is it not acceptable to pay somebody a wage that was agreed upon by both parties?

Desperate people will agree to desperate measures, bringing down the value of labour as a whole? (At least within a specific skill-set, potentially only in one area)

[Dreadnaught]

"Improving education" (whatever that means specifically) inflates the value of education, and is meaningless in the long run. Especially since the only value added - type work left in the post-industrialized west seems to be menial clerk-type stuff, you don't need contour integrals to work a till. Addressing substance abuse issues sounds nice, but what does it really mean? Your nation has been addressing them for several decades and has managed a rather nice for profit prison system, but this again does not seem to do much for the roaming urban youth (other than jail them to use their labour directly). Financial literacy is something I agree with, but without the vast amounts of consumer credit going around the wider public has little to no access to the increased wealth in the west (see inflation-adjusted worker earnings vs. worker productivity and business profits), so this might just end up making the social situation worse. It's not like people are keen on curbing their standard of living just for the sake of corporate profits, no matter how much folks like Loki are for it. As for the reproduction thing, I'm kinda on the fence. Less children is good for the ecological situation, but to say that large corporations should orchestrate the breeding habits of nations seems a tad monstrous. The legal definition of genocide is only an inch away from that, is corporate profit really that morally valuable?

Conversely, I'm certainly not saying increasing the minimum wage is some kind of golden magic bullet. I did see someone mention elsewhere that the price of a burger would go up a fraction of what you'd expect if fast food workers were given substantially better wages, but these kind of soft science evaluations are just that. What I would argue, though, is that it is symptomatic of a diseased culture where the argument always fundamentally stems from the interests of capital and not the people. Whether this can be addressed in a capitalist frame-work, I don't know.

You're still arguing from the mind-set that it is the capital that is important, not human life, even if you don't seem to realize it. Again, I do not know whether that axiom can ever not exist in a capitalist world order, so this line of argumentation can be seen as pointless bleating.

Hallo!

That hypothesis about small burger price increases from substantial wage increases is pretty clearly nonsense (and was discussed as such above in this thread). But I think your last paragraph (in both posts) is interesting, because to me it's the core of the socialist argument. And I think that argument is more an appeal to emotion than an appeal to reason.

I would argue that "my people" are not making an argument for "capital" and against "the people". We're arguing that business owners employ people and people choose to work for specific business owners. So we shouldn't arbitrarily make it more expensive to hire people because, in the long run, fewer people will be employed.

When a company like WalMart decides to cancel creating stores because it's being asked to pay 50% above minimum wage, it isn't doing it just to be vindictive and evil. It's doing it because the math underlying those stores has changed. They have a ~3-5% margin, so that math really matters.

We can argue all day about what's fair, but I would rather not micromanage a business. I'm far more concerned with making sure that we have a system that allows that business to grow and prosper (and new people to open their own businesses). Now, that "system" I'm talking about is of course capitalism. But I don't think socialism serves itself well by being a system devoted to micromanagement of other people just because they happen to be business owners. That antagonizes "capital" at the expense of "the people".

[Being]

Hallo!

That hypothesis about small burger price increases from substantial wage increases is pretty clearly nonsense (and was discussed as such above in this thread). But I think your last paragraph (in both posts) is interesting, because to me it's the core of the socialist argument. And I think that argument is more an appeal to emotion than an appeal to reason.

I would argue that "my people" are not making an argument for "capital" and against "the people". We're arguing that business owners employ people and people choose to work for specific business owners. So we shouldn't arbitrarily make it more expensive to hire people because, in the long run, fewer people will be employed.

When a company like WalMart decides to cancel creating stores because it's being asked to pay 50% above minimum wage, it isn't doing it just to be vindictive and evil. It's doing it because the math underlying those stores has changed. They have a ~3-5% margin, so that math really matters.

We can argue all day about what's fair, but I would rather not micromanage a business. I'm far more concerned with making sure that we have a system that allows that business to grow and prosper (and new people to open their own businesses). Now, that "system" I'm talking about is of course capitalism. But I don't think socialism serves itself well by being a system devoted to micromanagement of other people just because they happen to be business owners. That antagonizes "capital" at the expense of "the people".

Any model that relies completely on expanding markets is short sighted. Those models are unsustainable (unless maybe we can do the warp drive thing and find other planets with creatures to buy our shit). The single biggest expansion we have any hope of benefitting from (thousand year view) is speading the wealth; and that won't last either unless we get the warp drive thing going. Consumption requires participation. 1980 to date participation rates are down. Your theory is flawed but you don't see it because you are short sighted.

[Lewkowski]

Desperate people will agree to desperate measures, bringing down the value of labour as a whole? (At least within a specific skill-set, potentially only in one area)

What happens when you artificially increase or decrease the value of something?

[Enoch the Red]

Desperate people will agree to desperate measures, bringing down the value of labour as a whole? (At least within a specific skill-set, potentially only in one area)

I'm wondering what innate value you think that specific skill-set of labor has, and how that value should be determined.

[Lewkowski]

Any model that relies completely on expanding markets is short sighted. Those models are unsustainable (unless maybe we can do the warp drive thing and find other planets with creatures to buy our shit). The single biggest expansion we have any hope of benefitting from (thousand year view) is speading the wealth; and that won't last either unless we get the warp drive thing going. Consumption requires participation. 1980 to date participation rates are down. Your theory is flawed but you don't see it because you are short sighted.

At least your an honest liberal who admits they want to redistribute wealth.

[Being]

At least your an honest liberal who admits they want to redistribute wealth.

If you believe in expanding markets as your savior then you should ask yourself, what is the quickest way to expand? More participation is the obvious answer.

edit: And I don't believe that redistribution be mandatory in any form. In time, the margin of wealth will decline do to the need for increased participation (unless of course we get to the soylent green stage).

[Ominous Gamer]

I'm sorry, but why is it not acceptable to pay somebody a wage that was agreed upon by both parties?

I wouldn't consider a legal obligation that's forced on both parties by the government, and is viewed as unacceptable by both parties, to be something that they both agreed upon.

[Enoch the Red]

I wouldn't consider a legal obligation that's forced on both parties by the government, and is viewed as unacceptable by both parties, to be something that they both agreed upon.

Okay? Are you trying to argue that because something isn't optimal it is compulsory?

[Lewkowski]

If you believe in expanding markets as your savior then you should ask yourself, what is the quickest way to expand? More participation is the obvious answer.

edit: And I don't believe that redistribution be mandatory in any form. In time, the margin of wealth will decline do to the need for increased participation (unless of course we get to the soylent green stage).

1. Technology leads to expansion - just like today we have a lot more stuff then we did 50 years ago. Environmentalists hate it but I love all the stuff.
2. Capitalism does not require constantly expanding markets to function. Certain industries are structured that way but capitalism itself doesn't require it.

[Being]

1. Technology leads to expansion - just like today we have a lot more stuff then we did 50 years ago. Environmentalists hate it but I love all the stuff.
2. Capitalism does not require constantly expanding markets to function. Certain industries are structured that way but capitalism itself doesn't require it.

I wonder what capitalism and democracy have in comon?

[Nessus]

I'm wondering what innate value you think that specific skill-set of labor has, and how that value should be determined.

I'm pretty sure they could be replaced by robots, really. But so long as one human being is exchanging labour for money, they ought be decently compensated.

[GGT]

That hypothesis about small burger price increases from substantial wage increases is pretty clearly nonsense (and was discussed as such above in this thread). But I think your last paragraph (in both posts) is interesting, because to me it's the core of the socialist argument. And I think that argument is more an appeal to emotion than an appeal to reason.

Ah, the SSSocialism argument. Plenty of other restaurant chains (Panera) and burger joints (Five Guys) charge more than McDonald's, and retail stores (Costco) have the same tight margins...but still manage to pay more than $7.25/hour and earn profits. I believe they call it Humanitarian Capitalism, which includes the employees/workers in the flow of capital/income. Win/Win.

I would argue that "my people" are not making an argument for "capital" and against "the people". We're arguing that business owners employ people and people choose to work for specific business owners. So we shouldn't arbitrarily make it more expensive to hire people because, in the long run, fewer people will be employed.

It's been "inexpensive" to hire people since the Great Recession, but they're not --- because of sluggish consumer demand and anxiety about the economy. So it's become a Mexican Standoff of who blinks first, those with capital vs those with none?

We can argue all day about what's fair, but I would rather not micromanage a business. I'm far more concerned with making sure that we have a system that allows that business to grow and prosper (and new people to open their own businesses). Now, that "system" I'm talking about is of course capitalism. But I don't think socialism serves itself well by being a system devoted to micromanagement of other people just because they happen to be business owners. That antagonizes "capital" at the expense of "the people".

How can capitalism create business growth and prosperity....when a majority, or growing numbers of the population is either unemployed, underemployed, underpaid, and barely keeping up with COL? All business needs buyers, consumers with money to spend. It's easy to exploit workers in the name of capital outlandish profits, particularly during big transitions like we're seeing now.

When millions of middle-income jobs simply vanished, with no replacements, and trillions of wealth was extracted from the economy....that came at the expense of "the people". The People bailed out Big Banks and financial institutions, the Fed pumped trillions into propping up capital holders and 'market makers', favoring the top 1%. So where are the jobs? When does that trickle-down theory actually work in the new reality?

[GGT]

Why would 2 people working full-time jobs only make $18k a year? Two full-time minimum wage jobs should net you nearly $30k a year...The place I live in is no New York, but the cost of living here is roughly average for the US as a whole.

You also live in a university town, with plenty of education/academic/tax subsidies.

You'd get pretty much all of that back in tax refunds. A family of 2 earning $30k would probably end up paying about $2k in taxes. Last I checked, I'm also paying taxes on my $18k (plus a nice $360 a year to the grad student union of which I am not a member)...

My rough budget (before wife moved in):

Rent: $600 a month (could have gotten an apartment for $450 if I was willing to lose some comforts)
Bills: $60 a month
Supermarket: $300 (I don't buy cheap food)
Fast food: $120
College fees: $100 a month (includes insurance)
Electronics/accessories: $20
Air travel: $150
Other: $50 (being really generous here)
Total: $1400

Post tax paycheck (per month): $1400

If you look at the expenses, I could have easily cut nearly $150 a month from food without hurting my diet (in fact, it would probably improve it), could have saved another $150 on the apartment, and the air travel is a function of me being a dirty foreigner with a foreign significant other. Were I not a college student, I'd need to spend an extra $100 a month on health insurance.

What does "bills" mean? If that's utility costs for electricity, natural gas, water, and septic sewerage.....$60/month is obviously artificially low and publicly subsidized. Your travel/transportation costs only reflect air travel (presumably to visit your fiancee in the UK) and no costs for local travel. You don't need a car, or its costs of gas/maintenance/insurance/parking because university/public subsidies pay for your local transit. Your college fees of $100/month, including insurance, are nowhere close to what others pay outside academia.

Your "budget" can't be taken seriously, since it's premised on college town costs, taking full advantage of public subsidies. Try taking your $18K income outside academia, without its subsidies, and make it work.

[Enoch the Red]

I'm pretty sure they could be replaced by robots, really. But so long as one human being is exchanging labour for money, they ought be decently compensated.

Decently compensated doesn't seem to be a very concrete metric. If I'm willing to work for minimum wage - and consider that fair compensation for my labor - wouldn't I be getting decent compensation?

[GGT]

Decently compensated doesn't seem to be a very concrete metric. If I'm willing to work for minimum wage - and consider that fair compensation for my labor - wouldn't I be getting decent compensation?

If you're desperate for work, does that mean you feel 'fairly compensated' for any job you can get, even if it pays $5/hour?

[Ominous Gamer]

Decently compensated doesn't seem to be a very concrete metric. If I'm willing to work for minimum wage - and consider that fair compensation for my labor - wouldn't I be getting decent compensation?

Just to be clear, since you missed the point last time it was brought up. You consider everyone who earns minimum wage as people who are doing so willingly, without pressure or distress, and thus consider minimum wage an appropriate or decent compensation?

[Loki]

Using your definition of "pressure" and "willingly", any time one side in a negotiation has leverage over the other, the latter is under "pressure" and "distress".

[GGT]

They're just not working hard enough, by working several part time jobs. They're not pulling their weight, or pulling themselves up by their bootstraps. Not saving enough, spending too much. Too many lunches at McDonald's dollar menu, too many ice cream cones at Dairy Queen for the kids. What a bunch of ingrates, huh. Working two part-time jobs at minimum wage, more than 60 hours per week. They're simply doing it wrong.

[Enoch the Red]

Just to be clear, since you missed the point last time it was brought up. You consider everyone who earns minimum wage as people who are doing so willingly, without pressure or distress, and thus consider minimum wage an appropriate or decent compensation?

I'm not exactly sure what you are trying to say, or how I missed your point last time. Do you honestly believe that because you have obligations and responsibilities that require you to make an income that you somehow are coerced into working for a company you don't wish to work for? Did you fill out an job application with a gun against your head? Was it somehow not made clear what your responsibilities and compensation would be? Having to make a hard or undesirable choice in the short term does not mean you are incapable of making that choice, nor is it preventing you from making future decisions about where you are employed and what you are doing.

What I do believe is that people are quite capable of making their own decisions. If they are unhappy with their wage they have options available to them, including leaving their current position and looking for another job in the same field, trying to seek advancement at their current job, or finding new work entirely. Frankly I'm not convinced it's a terrible thing that low-skill, low-wage jobs don't always provide a comfortable living. I would much rather people look for and find work that is more rewarding, productive and/or fulfilling than dropping a basket full of chopped potatoes into a bucket of hot grease. I know that's not a career I would want, and I'm sure that's true of most here.

[Khendraja'aro]

Yes, and those better jobs appear magically from the sky in some kind of fairy land.

We can succeed if we only try hard enough! Isn't that the creed of capitalists everywhere, dismissing stuff like chance and misfortune? I distinctly remember that people spouting this particular claim usually suffer from positive bias - they only see the successful people because the unsuccessful people simply sweep by below their radar.

[GGT]

No, I consider people quite capable of making their own decisions. If they are unhappy with their wage they have options available to them, including leaving their current position and looking for another job in the same field, trying to seek advancement at their current job, or finding new work entirely. Frankly I'm not convinced it's a terrible thing that low-skill, low-wage jobs don't always provide a comfortable living. I would much rather people look for and find work that is more rewarding, productive and/or fulfilling than dropping a basket full of potatoes into a bucket of hot grease.

They probably would, too. Pray tell...where are these jobs? You do realize that many college grads are doing french fry duty, right?

[Enoch the Red]

Yes, and those better jobs appear magically from the sky in some kind of fairy land.

We can succeed if we only try hard enough! Isn't that the creed of capitalists everywhere, dismissing stuff like chance and misfortune? I distinctly remember that people spouting this particular claim usually suffer from positive bias - they only see the successful people because the unsuccessful people simply sweep by below their radar.

Why aren't you working in fast food Khend? Did the stars align? Were you born with a silver spoon in your mouth? Was it sheer luck?

Look, I think you'll be hard pressed to find an instance of me saying that there aren't genuine cases of people suffering from chance and misfortune. I certainly believe there are. I also believe there are people who suffer from consequences of poor life decisions, and continue to make choices that aren't likely to result in a comfortable or happy life. One of the greatest tragedies is that these same problems can become generational, and that children born into these homes are starting off at a significant disadvantage. I think it's 'fairy land' thinking that our actions don't have consequences and that we have no power to make meaningful and productive changes to our life.

They probably would, too. Pray tell...where are these jobs? You do realize that many college grads are doing french fry duty, right?

I'm sure there are. I don't believe simply having a college degree earns you a cushy life.

[GGT]

Hey Enoch, are you still living among Indiana corn fields? Those seasonal de-tassling jobs are hell, but pay two or three times above minimum wage. Has the Ag industry figured out how to replace that manual labor with automated machinery yet? When they do, where will those workers go? Can they all attend Purdue University to become Veterinarians, or Agro-pharma scientists?

[Nessus]

Decently compensated doesn't seem to be a very concrete metric. If I'm willing to work for minimum wage - and consider that fair compensation for my labor - wouldn't I be getting decent compensation?

I agree that I used sloppy language, sorry about that. Anyhow, the conversation passed on and you pointed out that sometimes people get fucked over, by themselves or others. If you have a kid who's hungry, you're gonna take the wage you'll get because the other choice is pretty, hmm, dark, let's say. As you said, it's a nice idea that people would better themselves and "get ahead" in life, but that's not always an option (without criminal liabilities). If the median age of a fast food worker is closer to 30 than 15, I think it's dubious to consider it a throw-away garbage job, no matter how little Loki spends on food a month.

Ultimately, what you're saying is that people need to make choices and be responsible for themselves, right? If you enter into a work contract that entails having your hands lopped off if you're lazy, that's just making poor business decisions, yes? Conversely, giving people golden toilet seats for working at Mickey Dee's isn't feasible. But the people working at Mickey Dee today kinda seem to fit the bill of "working poor". So if they want to unionize in order to negotiate a fairer hand shake, I see no problem there.