California is a sorry excuse for a state

[dmac1]

Why pay some kid $15/hr when he will happily work for $12/hr?

How about because we as a society don't think taxpayers should help support McDonalds employees?
Customers should be paying the full cost of the burger. I don't eat there, yet my taxes are higher because McDonalds doesn't pay a livable amount.
We shouldn't want poor people who barely make a living. A livable wage among the lowest paid will raise wages for those with more skills. A livable wage will encourage those who aren't working because it isn't worth it to maybe get a job. But when they see people working 40-60 hours a week, and barely getting by, they might choose an impoverished life where they don't work regularly over a life where they need to kill themselves to get ahead.and that is a burden on everyone, even if we give them nothing. There will be people who choose to die on the street from hunger or disease if we cut off all aid rather than work at some menial job. Do you want to live in that country?????

 

[UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)]

The majority of Mickey D employees are still on Mommy and Daddy's healthcare so we are not subsidizing anything.

Both of my kids started their work careers at Mickey D's.

Both of my kids were on my insurance at the time.

 

[dmac1]

Your kids should have been able to concentrate on going to school. And today's McDonalds hire a large % of adults and even as supervisors barely make enough to live on.. Talking about your kids is just a deflection from the point that employers need to pay enough to live on.

 

[UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)]

Your kids should have been able to concentrate on going to school. And today's McDonalds hire a large % of adults and even as supervisors barely make enough to live on.. Talking about your kids is just a deflection from the point that employers need to pay enough to live on.

They were both under 18 at the time. My ex and I felt that it would teach them to balance work, school and sports. It worked.

 

[Fred's Myth]

McDonald's is already preparing to automate their systems in order to eliminate the majority of their workers. Who benefits then? Automated order kiosks, automated food assembly, electronic payments, all will minimize the need for human workers. Those newly unemployed workers will place an upward pressure on the need for government assistance, resulting in more taxes on YOU to pay for it.
Until there is a sustained demand for workers, due to there being more jobs than the available labor force can provide, wages will remain stagnant. Artificially escalating wages will actually put a downward pressure on the job market, as well as increase inflation. If you haven't lived through an extended inflationary period, you don't know the true meaning of a declining income.

 

[slowdriver]

McDonald's is already preparing to automate their systems in order to eliminate the majority of their workers. Who benefits then? Automated order kiosks, automated food assembly, electronic payments, all will minimize the need for human workers. Those newly unemployed workers will place an upward pressure on the need for government assistance, resulting in more taxes on YOU to pay for it.
Until there is a sustained demand for workers, due to there being more jobs than the available labor force can provide, wages will remain stagnant. Artificially escalating wages will actually put a downward pressure on the job market, as well as increase inflation. If you haven't lived through an extended inflationary period, you don't know the true meaning of a declining income.

Automation/robots can only be cost effective as job replacments because every single component of a robot down to the transistors are made in chinese sweat shops for pennies an hour, no US employee can compete with that regardless of the wage..

 

[MAKAVELI]

The majority of Mickey D employees are still on Mommy and Daddy's healthcare so we are not subsidizing anything.

Unless the parents are getting a subsidy for health insurance.

 

[tonyexpress]

Mickey D's is not a career. It is for kids and a starter job to learn the basics. If you're trying to make ends meet at MD you're not ever going to go anywhere.

Why should society pay for or MD pay more to make burger flipping a viable career? They shouldn't, it was never meant to be that. The adults trying to do so are only degrading their own lifestyles by choosing not to better themselves. This country offers so much more and the poor choices not to better yourself hurts everyone.

Even Starbucks and In-N-Out burger offer better paying solutions than Mickey D's.

Get an education, move up and move out.

 

[oldngray]

Mickey D's is not a career. It is for kids and a starter job to learn the basics. If you're trying to make ends meet at MD you're not ever going to go anywhere.

Why should society pay for or MD pay more to make burger flipping a viable career? They shouldn't, it was never meant to be that. The adults trying to do so are only degrading their own lifestyles by choosing not to better themselves. This country offers so much more and the poor choices not to better yourself hurts everyone.

Even Starbucks and In-N-Out burger offer better paying solutions than Mickey D's.

Get an education, move up and move out.

 

[59 Dano]

If we allow corporations to pay less than a wage people can live on, we end up with what we have now- people working full-time and still needing help from the rest of us. That means that instead of the employer paying enough to live a basic life, we the taxpayers end up paying.

I can't see how any intelligent person can want their taxes to be higher so McDonalds can pay less. We need to demand, or require, that any employer pays at least enough to live on, including a basic home, food, utilities, transportation to be able to go to work, and medical care.

Until employers pay enough to live on, your taxes will be higher than they need to be. Yes, there will still be people who can't work, or won't work, or are unhirable for some other reason, but a large % of people collecting social benefits are working people.

You and I are subsidizing employers like Walmart and McDonalds indirectly. That takes them out of the 'free market' ideal where employers succeeed or fail on their own. Demanding fair pay, a livable wage, would reduce the level of subsidy. I'd rather pay 10 cents more for a burger the few times a year I eat fast food than to pay higher taxes to support a company I don't really care about. Let McDonalds fail or succeed on their own while demanding that their workers get paid enough to live on.

We could greatly reduce the dollars spend on the aid, plus the tax dollars spent on the bureaucracy managing that aid if employers were required to pay enough to live on if they want to stay in business.

Jethro might be worth $8/hour but there's no way he's worth $10/hour, let alone more than that. He doesn't get hired. Now he's on the dole, which I'm paying for, and prices are higher because higher wages were supposed to make Jethro self-sufficient and keep him off the dole.

I'll pass.

 

[59 Dano]

Inflation was rampant during the Reagan administration, and interest rates were high. That's why wages rose. Reagan spent us into the largest deficit spending spree and artificially inflated the demand for workers with wasteful defense spending.

Interest rates and inflation dropped significantly during his presidency (he campaigned on reducing both). His "wasteful" defense spending brought an end to the Cold War.

Saying that the government 'confiscates' wealth is stupid.

con·fis·cate
ˈkänfəˌskāt/
verb

1. take or seize (someone's property) with authority.
   "the guards confiscated his camera"
   synonyms: impound, seize, commandeer, requisition, appropriate, expropriate, sequester, sequestrate, take (away);
   distrain
   "the guards confiscated his camera"
   • take (a possession, especially land) as a penalty and give it to the public treasury.
     "the government confiscated his property"

 

[59 Dano]

How about because we as a society don't think taxpayers should help support McDonalds employees? Customers should be paying the full cost of the burger.

We already do. Contrary to what you'd like for us to believe, his off-the-clock life is not part of the cost of the burger.

A livable wage among the lowest paid will raise wages for those with more skills.

I can afford 2 employees @ $20,000 each and they are worth $20,000 each. We implement your living wage fantasy and now I have to pay at least $25,000 each. I can't afford that. I can get rid of one, work the other to death, and pocket an extra $15,000.

I can get rid of both of them and hire someone worth $30,000, do some of the work myself, and pocket an extra $10,000.

I can say to hell with it and go out of business.

In each case someone who had a job and was gaining experience would end up without a paycheck and would no longer be developing any skills that he could take somewhere else and use to make more money.

Where do you get these crazy ideas?

 

[59 Dano]

They were both under 18 at the time. My ex and I felt that it would teach them to balance work, school and sports. It worked.

Exactly. The handful of kids I've known who had no business working while in HS were either too dumb to hold a job or so ridiculously smart that spending time flipping burgers would be depriving them of some serious intellectual development.

For the other 98% of kids, a job in HS is a great thing.

 

[59 Dano]

Automation/robots can only be cost effective as job replacments because every single component of a robot down to the transistors are made in chinese sweat shops for pennies an hour, no US employee can compete with that regardless of the wage..

I interviewed at a company and took a tour of their plant. All of their stuff is German. Each machine has 2 packaging units. One puts the product in a retail package and the other puts the retail packages into cases. They go into a conveyor system (made domestically) to the warehouse. Those packaging units replaced 4 employees per machine, per shift. They have 7 machines that run 3 shifts per day.

Each machine saves over $60,000/year in labor costs.

 

[rod]

 

[bacha29]

Jethro might be worth $8/hour but there's no way he's worth $10/hour, let alone more than that. He doesn't get hired. Now he's on the dole, which I'm paying for, and prices are higher because higher wages were supposed to make Jethro self-sufficient and keep him off the dole.

I'll pass.

Why would someone with your gifted and superior intellect and impressive professional achievement even go to a low class place like McDonald's in the first place?

 

[Oldfart]

Anyone that works at McDs and thinks they should make enough money to support a household is delusional. Anyone that believes workers at McDs should make enough to support a household is even more delusional.

 

[Fred's Myth]

Why would someone with your gifted and superior intellect and impressive professional achievement even go to a low class place like McDonald's in the first place?

Why would someone of your vintage criticize ANYONE pointing out the reality that his scenario paints?

 

[dmac1]

Anyone that works at McDs and thinks they should make enough money to support a household is delusional. Anyone that believes workers at McDs should make enough to support a household is even more delusional.

You are saying that people with skills shouldn't take a job at McDonalds or other low wage jobs, assuming that there are just millions and millions of jobs available for everyone everywhere. THAT is ignorant. There are more low wage workers than there are open better paying jobs.

For a lot of people, McDonalds or other low wage jobs are their only option. And while you may think that an employer has no obligation to support their employees off duty, the FACT remains that as long as there are employers who don't pay enough to live on, we will all be paying more in taxes to help those people survive.

You may want to base life on the ideal, but I want to base it on the real. Ideally there would be good paying jobs for everyone equipped to do the job, but that isn't the case. Companies like McDonalds are taking advantage of the oversupply of workers to the detriment of taxpayers. A conservative wouldn't want taxpayers to be screwed over by highly profitable companies who are hurting taxpayers.

I think any employer who uses people to make a profit needs to make sure those workers don't result in a burden on the rest of us. If a company can't make it without putting more demand on taxpayers, they shouldn't be in business. No one who works full time should need taxpayers to make up the difference between what the employer pays and the basic needs of staying employable..

 

[dmac1]

Anyone that works at McDs and thinks they should make enough money to support a household is delusional. Anyone that believes workers at McDs should make enough to support a household is even more delusional.

I never said enough to support a household. I said enough to live on. You refuse to listen, and try to deflect by putting words in my mouth because you have no reasonable basis to argue your point. If an employer doesn't even pay enough to keep an employee alive and in a working condition, they shouldn't be allowed to have employees at all.