McDonalds: "What, my peon, you don't work two full time jobs?"

[Admiral Yi]

Sure. That deals with extreme example but not the general principle that taxpayers should not have  to subsidise companies utilising cheap labour and that such subsidies distorts the labour market.

Of course welfare distorts the labor market.

Whether it subsidizes cheap labor is a debateable issue.  I don't see how the market wage would rise in the absence of welfare.

[Camerus]

Yes, and nor should one live in a tornado prone region.   

I don't see the connection.

It's a reference to Hamilcar's famous troll.  Both are guilty of unrealistically elitist criticism.  If you've met the majority of fast food workers, expecting them to suddenly become managers or whatever is rather unrealistic. 

I'd also submit that in a first world country with the level of wealth as the USA has, it shouldn't be the case that the poorest members of society still need to work two full time jobs to make ends meet.  My comment is IMO necessary in that it addresses (what I perceive to be) Berkut's comment that it's OK that the lowest level employees make such crap wages.

[CountDeMoney]

I'd also submit that in a first world country with the level of wealth as the USA has, it shouldn't be the case that the poorest members of society still need to work two full time jobs to make ends meet.

But it's not written anywhere that they shouldn't, so fuck 'em.

Man, you Euros just don't get the concept of America at all.  If you work hard, you'll be rewarded in life.  If you're not rewarded, you obviously didn't work hard enough or didn't borrow money from your parents to start your own business.

[CountDeMoney]

I certainly never expected that to be the case - when a job at minimum wage is the best you can get, you aren't living alone, you have roomates to share expenses, and they probably have shitty jobs as well, and you guys all live in some shitty apartment and think "Wow, my job sucks I really should get a better one so I can afford a car and a non-shitty apartment and won't have to put up with these assholes anymore".

I had no idea so many of the nation's working poor are really trapped in a buddy sitcom. 

[Grey Fox]

Where is it written that a job serving french fries ought to pay a salary that someone can live comfortably on?

The day those jobs became the only option.

[Neil]

I simply do not understand this issue.

Where is it written that a job serving french fries ought to pay a salary that someone can live comfortably on?

When did that assumption become the paradigm to judge this kind of stuff on?

I certainly never expected that to be the case - when a job at minimum wage is the best you can get, you aren't living alone, you have roomates to share expenses, and they probably have shitty jobs as well, and you guys all live in some shitty apartment and think "Wow, my job sucks I really should get a better one so I can afford a car and a non-shitty apartment and won't have to put up with these assholes anymore".

A full time job flipping burgers at McDonalds doesn't pay enough to live an "average" lifestyle? No fucking shit! That is why you should aspire to a bit more.

It isn't why we should just ignore the market rates and decide everyone must make enough to live an average lifestyle with a far below average job.

While I don't entirely disagree with you, I think that the social welfare system is acting like a subsidy for the companies in that regard.  By encouraging their employees to go on food stamps, they feel they can get away with paying their employees less and still retain them.

[garbon]

I simply do not understand this issue.

Where is it written that a job serving french fries ought to pay a salary that someone can live comfortably on?

When did that assumption become the paradigm to judge this kind of stuff on?

I certainly never expected that to be the case - when a job at minimum wage is the best you can get, you aren't living alone, you have roomates to share expenses, and they probably have shitty jobs as well, and you guys all live in some shitty apartment and think "Wow, my job sucks I really should get a better one so I can afford a car and a non-shitty apartment and won't have to put up with these assholes anymore".

A full time job flipping burgers at McDonalds doesn't pay enough to live an "average" lifestyle? No fucking shit! That is why you should aspire to a bit more.

It isn't why we should just ignore the market rates and decide everyone must make enough to live an average lifestyle with a far below average job.

While I don't entirely disagree with you, I think that the social welfare system is acting like a subsidy for the companies in that regard.  By encouraging their employees to go on food stamps, they feel they can get away with paying their employees less and still retain them.

But would they not be able to do that if welfare didn't exist? Would those individuals just give up entirely.

[Berkut]

I don't think the labor market works like that. There are lots of jobs out there of the McBurger flipper variety. McDonalds has to pay enough to attract decent employees from those other jobs. They aren't sitting around calculating how much they can pay someone based on some formula that includes how much public assistance they may get.

I've managed restaurants that paid at that scale. And it simply does not work in the manner described, and I had, that I can recall, very, very few employees who were using their near minimum wage job as any kind of actual career.

Instead I employed

1. Students - most of the labor force by far, probably 75%.
2. People for whom this job was a second job, working part time evenings to help make ends meet.
3. Retirees looking to supplement their retirement or simply bored (awesome employees, btw)
4. People who just need any job, and I know they won't stay long, or they will move to category 2 once they find a better job, or will move into management.

What is interesting about this debate is the basic problem I have with the liberal mindset. It never, ever stops. No matter what service or tax break or assistance is given, the moment it is established, they just then move the bar for another group that needs "help" from the gentle hand of the state. McJobs have been around forever, and yet never before was their this argument that minimum wage ought to provide a living salary for your typical adult American. What has changed about our society such that now minimum wage should actually be equal to median wage?

Now we want to define minimum wage at a level such that someone on it would not qualify for any type of welfare???? How can that make sense - is the definition for how to qualify for ANY kind of assistance driven at all by minimum wage? Of course not, because the type of assistance in question is too variable. We give child tax care credit to people making very median salaries.

Minimum wage should be the minimum that a business can pay people based on something, but that something should absolutely have nothing to do with what it takes to actually support oneself in some median level of comfort. That is just wholesale abandoning any semblance of a market in labor at all. Not all jobs are "livable salary" jobs, nor should they be.

[Berkut]

Where is it written that a job serving french fries ought to pay a salary that someone can live comfortably on?

The day those jobs became the only option.

Let me know when that happens and I will start worrying about it.

[merithyn]

What has changed about our society such that now minimum wage should actually be equal to median wage?

I don't think anyone is suggesting that it "be equal to median wage". Rather, it's been suggested that it be enough for the average person to work one job and meet all of the bare necessities: housing, food, and clothes.

At a guess, I'd say the change in perspectives comes from the fact that in several other countries, that's what it means. Australia, as an example.

I'm not saying that I agree or disagree. I'm only suggesting that the reason it's become an area of contention in the US is that it has evolved elsewhere to mean "livable wage" rather than simply "minimum wage".

[Valmy]

A full time job flipping burgers at McDonalds doesn't pay enough to live an "average" lifestyle? No fucking shit! That is why you should aspire to a bit more.

Wow that is what you took away from that?  It looked like McDonalds is abusing the tax payers to get away with paying their workers below market wages, to the point they are actually recommending that to employees.  As in, people would not be working these jobs without the tax payers stepping in to make their wages livable.  It is corporate welfare.  But maybe this is not unexpected or necessarily a bad thing.

As to your last point our economy is a pretty dismal failure at providing sufficient employment above the McJobs level for all of the average and below average Joes and Janes.  But we KNEW this was going to happen when we did the whole globalization thing.  We knew that a short term consequence of this was going to be high unemployment as things evened out but in the end we would all benefit.  But, sure enough, we have had huge increases in unemployment and wage stagnation, you know, like we thought.  But this is hardly the workers fault, or that they should be 'aspiring for more', it is the predictable result of our policies.  It seems weird to suggest everybody can have a good job when we clearly do not have a demand for labor Stateside.  I was thinking the welfare state would have to see us through this transition time and perhaps this is just what we have to do.

[Ed Anger]

If I was a Franchisee, I'd fight that until my legs were bloody stumps. Then again, I'd never be a franchisee, as that shit is hard work and I'd end up smelling like mustard.

[CountDeMoney]

If I was a Franchisee, I'd fight that until my legs were bloody stumps.

There's a joke in there somewhere.

[katmai]

Mmm mustard

[Grey Fox]

Where is it written that a job serving french fries ought to pay a salary that someone can live comfortably on?

The day those jobs became the only option.

Let me know when that happens and I will start worrying about it.

For a vast portion of the American work force it has become the only option.