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

[Eddie Teach]

Nah, I hate rich people. 

[Valmy]

Now lazy faggots living on welfare?
Fuck them.

Wait I thought we were supposed to blame Obama for not fixing the economy

It turns out it is all the lazy homosexuals doing us in.

[The Brain]

His lazy gay lovers.

[Eddie Teach]

But they're dead? 

[Ideologue]

But they're dead? 

They need to get jobs.

[Admiral Yi]

But they're dead? 

Some might still be alive. 

[The Brain]

But they're dead? 

They need to get jobs.

I'd agree, but nature already took care of it.

[mongers]

Oh please. Fast food jobs are temporary jobs for students.

If the economy is all fucked up and people cannot get better jobs, blame it on the Obama Administration that failed to recover the economy, not the fast food industry who had always operated at the lowest pay rate.

That used to be true. Traditionally, fast-food jobs were for students.

Of course, by the same token, if you go back far enough, traditionally army jobs were for otherwise unemployable reprobates - or, as the Duke of Wellington so eloquently put it, "scum of the earth". 

My dad was given a choice when he was 19: jail or the Army. He chose the Army.

My friends options at 16 were either the steelworks or the Army, since the steelworks wasn't hiring due to a downturn, the Army it was.   

[Agelastus]

I suspect the amount will be as little as they can get away with...?

Congratulations, I think that might sum up their approach ie they've got agreed contract income coming in regularly, so they just have to cut down all costs to make more money. 

So guess what the salary was ?

Probably more than I think, which will just underline the hilarious differences between America and Europe yet again.  So I'm guessing the equivalent of $60k.

Try Minimum Wage, which is $19,700.

I'm not entirely sure why you're surprised; it seems to me that the introduction of the NMW homogenised wages at the lower end of the scale. Where before it there was a selection of jobs that (taking the current NMW as the starting point) would have had wage rates of between roughly £5.00 and £7.50 per hour before the minimum wage that are all exactly NMW (currently £6.31) now.

When the NMW came in a lot of companies seem to have decided that that wage level wasn't the start of what they should be offering but what they should be offering period, enshrined as it was in law. "Wage negotiable" disappeared from a lot of job advertisements; so did variable wage rates. And as the years have passed a lot more jobs have slipped into the NMW bracket as the small and medium sized companies that are in many respects the backbone of the British economy have scaled back on pay rises until the NMW reaches the level they've been paying at. When new positions were created at these firms the directors didn't think "what does the job deserve" but "we'll start it at NMW and then see what happens" because that was the easiest and quickest thing for them to do.

If anything the NMW has acted as a drag factor on wages growth for the poorest paid in our society.

It has not destroyed jobs as people feared it would when it was introduced, but nor has it been the panacea for the poorly paid. Gordon Brown resorted to "shenanigans" such as tax credits to compensate for the failure of the NMW to lift people above the somewhat arbitrary "poverty line" the last few governments have been obsessed with instead of tackling the issues properly; which has led us to the current situation that Shielbh is rightly complaining about, the seemingly historically high proportion of jobs in our society that qualify for what amount to government "top ups" to reach a certain living standard.

Now, as Grumbler will correctly point out, what I'm saying is based on personal experience anecdotal evidence rather than surveys and statistics, and thus should be treated with a degree of scepticism. It is however based on the experience of someone who has worked in the Vacancies Section (back when they existed) of a Jobcentre, who has worked in the field of helping people into work when they are on government programmes, and who has, shamefully, also spent a great deal of time looking for work himself and who has been astonished at the job titles and descriptions of some positions that are offered with a salary of only the NMW.

[mongers]

I suspect the amount will be as little as they can get away with...?

Congratulations, I think that might sum up their approach ie they've got agreed contract income coming in regularly, so they just have to cut down all costs to make more money. 

So guess what the salary was ?

Probably more than I think, which will just underline the hilarious differences between America and Europe yet again.  So I'm guessing the equivalent of $60k.

Try Minimum Wage, which is $19,700.

I'm not entirely sure why you're surprised; it seems to me that the introduction of the NMW homogenised wages at the lower end of the scale. Where before it there was a selection of jobs that (taking the current NMW as the starting point) would have had wage rates of between roughly £5.00 and £7.50 per hour before the minimum wage that are all exactly NMW (currently £6.31) now.

When the NMW came in a lot of companies seem to have decided that that wage level wasn't the start of what they should be offering but what they should be offering period, enshrined as it was in law. "Wage negotiable" disappeared from a lot of job advertisements; so did variable wage rates. And as the years have passed a lot more jobs have slipped into the NMW bracket as the small and medium sized companies that are in many respects the backbone of the British economy have scaled back on pay rises until the NMW reaches the level they've been paying at. When new positions were created at these firms the directors didn't think "what does the job deserve" but "we'll start it at NMW and then see what happens" because that was the easiest and quickest thing for them to do.

If anything the NMW has acted as a drag factor on wages growth for the poorest paid in our society.

It has not destroyed jobs as people feared it would when it was introduced, but nor has it been the panacea for the poorly paid. Gordon Brown resorted to "shenanigans" such as tax credits to compensate for the failure of the NMW to lift people above the somewhat arbitrary "poverty line" the last few governments have been obsessed with instead of tackling the issues properly; which has led us to the current situation that Shielbh is rightly complaining about, the seemingly historically high proportion of jobs in our society that qualify for what amount to government "top ups" to reach a certain living standard.

Now, as Grumbler will correctly point out, what I'm saying is based on personal experience anecdotal evidence rather than surveys and statistics, and thus should be treated with a degree of scepticism. It is however based on the experience of someone who has worked in the Vacancies Section (back when they existed) of a Jobcentre, who has worked in the field of helping people into work when they are on government programmes, and who has, shamefully, also spent a great deal of time looking for work himself and who has been astonished at the job titles and descriptions of some positions that are offered with a salary of only the NMW.

Thanks for that thorough post, I don't doubt what you've said is at work in the economy. 

It's just a surprising for someone returning to being an employee; time to ramp up plans to resume being my own boss. 

[Sheilbh]

Has it been mentioned yet that the average age of a fast food employee is now almost 30?

Around here it's all teens and older Mexicans.

Older Mexicans are still people

Well they are right.  Anybody getting angry at McDonalds is just being absurd.  Besides they are hardly the only fast food franchise, they are not even the biggest one anymore.

I'm torn. On the one hand helping their staff get benefits is a good thing to do. On the other hand that they're doing it is enraging.

It has not destroyed jobs as people feared it would when it was introduced, but nor has it been the panacea for the poorly paid. Gordon Brown resorted to "shenanigans" such as tax credits to compensate for the failure of the NMW to lift people above the somewhat arbitrary "poverty line" the last few governments have been obsessed with instead of tackling the issues properly

In fairness to Brown many of his tax credits were meant to be like the EITC - redistribution for workers. You'll remember in the first year or so of New Labour lots of lefties cried blue murder about the government cutting benefits for single mothers. Many of the tax credits were introduced at that time and were targeted especially at single mothers. And it worked. Employment for single parents shot up during their time in office (with the accompanying reduction in child poverty).

Now they're attacked because they made things complicated and introduced this element of welfare into work, many of which are legitimate criticisms. But the policy addressed what it was meant to and it worked.

Also the minimum wage was deliberately set low to begin with and rises have been very restrained (that's why Tories and Labour now support raising it quite significantly). Also depends on your goal. The most efficient way to redistribute and to transfer income is through tax credits - like the EITC - that puts more money in people's pockets than raising the minimum wage.

But I think there are other issues which need addressing more than just income levels.

[Admiral Yi]

Older Mexicans are still people

They are still people who lack the language skills to get better paying jobs.

[Sheilbh]

Older Mexicans are still people

They are still people who lack the language skills to get better paying jobs.

I meant they still get counted when working out an average

[Barrister]

Out in Alberta it seems every single fast food place is stuffed full of Fillipino guest workers.

[Razgovory]

Oh please. Fast food jobs are temporary jobs for students.

If the economy is all fucked up and people cannot get better jobs, blame it on the Obama Administration that failed to recover the economy, not the fast food industry who had always operated at the lowest pay rate.

How does that actually fix the problem?