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

[merithyn]

$10 per hour is what I earned in the pottery studeo as an apprentice ... more than two decades ago. 

Jackson just got a promotion and raise at Einstein Bagels. As a shift manager working full-time hours, he makes $9.50/hour.

[Valmy]

$10 per hour is what I earned in the pottery studeo as an apprentice ... more than two decades ago. 

Yep.  Got to love wage stagnation.

[HVC]

$10 per hour is what I earned in the pottery studeo as an apprentice ... more than two decades ago. 

Jackson just got a promotion and raise at Einstein Bagels. As a shift manager working full-time hours, he makes $9.50/hour.

it's all relative...


I'll get my coat

[Ed Anger]

US Steel needs to stop putting gates on their properties that have good off roading trails, they are making it a bit difficult to trespass.

Huh, a property owner protecting its property. How dare they.

[lustindarkness]

US Steel needs to stop putting gates on their properties that have good off roading trails, they are making it a bit difficult to trespass.

Huh, a property owner protecting its property. How dare they.

Yeap

[Ed Anger]

You might be as bad as hunters. 

[merithyn]

$10 per hour is what I earned in the pottery studeo as an apprentice ... more than two decades ago. 

Jackson just got a promotion and raise at Einstein Bagels. As a shift manager working full-time hours, he makes $9.50/hour.

I just did the math. Because he doesn't pay for any insurance or other benefits, his take home is roughly the same as mine before my promotion. That's enough for one person to cover living expenses, food, and clothing, and have a little left over.

It's also $1.25/hr over the state of Illinois' minimum wage.

[Berkut]

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.

But which is it - should the welfare state make up the difference, or should we just stomp on the labor market and have the state set wages?

[lustindarkness]

You might be as bad as hunters. 

Irresponsible off roaders are worst than poachers, I've seen trash and pure destruction you cannot imagine.

[CountDeMoney]

You might be as bad as hunters. 

Irresponsible off roaders are worst than poachers, I've seen trash and pure destruction you cannot imagine.

They're also more responsible for medivacs.  Lots of head and spine injuries doing Snake Canyon bullshit.

[Ed Anger]

You might be as bad as hunters. 

Irresponsible off roaders are worst than poachers, I've seen trash and pure destruction you cannot imagine.

Oh, I've seen the damage they've done.

I might let you on mah land Lusti. You seem like a good egg.

[Berkut]

Yeah, factory jobs tend to pay pretty well. They have to because the shifts and tedious work involved is so unpleasant.

This is what people are missing.  These jobs are not intended to be positions filled by people who live alone and have no other income, or who are heads of households.  They're jobs for people, for example full-time students, who want to work part time to pick up some extra spending money.

In an ideal world that's how things would be.
In the world we do live in howevever many people have no choice but to take on these jobs full time. Its a tough world, you can't choose what job to do, you have to take whatever you can get.

I don't buy the argument that there has been such a shift, but even assuming it was true, how is the state defining that businesses pay people more than the market rate (potentially MUCH MUCH more) going to make things better? Has the state setting wages ever made it better? Can someone provide some actual arguments from actual economists stating that the state really should have a part in deciding how much private business pay private individuals at the macro level, and that this will HELP the problem of not enough median income jobs?

[lustindarkness]

You might be as bad as hunters. 

Irresponsible off roaders are worst than poachers, I've seen trash and pure destruction you cannot imagine.

Oh, I've seen the damage they've done.

I might let you on mah land Lusti. You seem like a good egg.

Be carefull, I may take you up on that.

[Valmy]

But which is it - should the welfare state make up the difference, or should we just stomp on the labor market and have the state set wages?

Well we sort of do both don't we?  As I said it may just be what we need to do before the jobs have come back in sufficient numbers.

[Berkut]

But which is it - should the welfare state make up the difference, or should we just stomp on the labor market and have the state set wages?

Well we sort of do both don't we?  As I said it may just be what we need to do before the jobs have come back in sufficient numbers.

A good way to make sure jobs don't come back is to have the state step up and decide what everyone should be paid.

I would MUCH rather see that difference made up with the welfare state. At least then we don't have the fucking government trying to decide what everyone should make - that is classic liberal fucked up interference in the market that will inevitably backfire in the long run, just like all that kind of crap does, every single time.

"Everyone should be able to afford a college education! Lets give out grants and guaranteed loans to all! What can go wrong?" "Hey, how is it that average tuition costs are going up 10% a year every single year forever and ever? I don't understand!"