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Hundreds of fast food workers are striking nationwide Tuesday, joining other workers in pressing for a more livable wage. But while some say $15 is a minimum needed to survive, some business owners say dishing out more pay would leave them struggling to keep their doors open.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/fast-food-workers-strike-again-nationwide-for-15-an-hour
In New York City, rallies are being held in Harlem, the Financial District and Brooklyn in support of efforts to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, reports CBS New York.
In Los Angeles, the local protests are organized by Service Employees International Union, and include fast-food, home-care and child-care workers, along with other "underpaid" employees, reports CBS Los Angeles.
"Is this the America we believe in? When someone works all day long and they still can't get by," New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said during an early-morning rally in Downtown Brooklyn. "Does anyone believe that it's easy to get by in New York City on less than $15 an hour?"
Critics say a $15 minimum wage would obliterate opportunity and usher in higher taxes, but de Blasio said the opposite is true -- with more money to spend, low wage workers contribute more to the economy.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday November 11 2015, @03:34AM
Back when I worked for minimum wage, I lived with my parents - who bought my car and paid for the insurance, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to "afford the job." $3.35/hr (minus taxes) was enough to pay for my gas and give me a little spending money, the spending money never amounted to an auto-insurance payment for a 17 year old, but, as I said, it's not a living wage, never was even close.
90% of my co-workers were in similar situations, some got rides to work, all but a couple were living with their parents, and the story was much the same all over town. The few who made full time jobs of it were living 4 and 6 to a trailer in a park within walking distance.
Is this right? No, it's just the way it was, and still is.
Personally, I'd rather see the minimum cost of living dropped, rather than the minimum wage raised. Foster conditions that provide affordable rent and transportation, I think food today is pretty cheap, by comparison. We're already concentrating into cities where the transport can be cheap, concentrate on keeping safe affordable housing present in places that have good access to cheap transportation.
Oh, and it's about time to repeal the laws that make it attractive to businesses to keep a huge staff of benefit-less part-timers. Making people work 2 and 3 jobs without benefits just to make ends meet is a great formula for children raised by television instead of their parents, and, by the odds, that doesn't turn out as well as often and being raised by people who care.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday November 11 2015, @03:42AM
I know lots of people making minimum wage who are raising children. It's not by any means a training wage. To say that it's not meant to be a living wage belies the application to which it is put.
Back in the day you could make good money making clothing at a big factory in Rockland, Maine. That closed down right around the time I moved there in 2001.
Gas stations typically profit $0.02/gallon on their gas - the gas pumps serve only to attract convenience store customers. All that money goes to the oil companies, a modest portion goes to taxes. Back in the day, the cost of a gallon of gas could pay for several full-serve attendants who would check your oil, water, tires, transmission fluid and wash your windows.
What has actually happened is that larger and larger shares of our nation's wealth has gone to those already wealthy, with less and less going to those at the lower ends of the pay scale.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Snotnose on Wednesday November 11 2015, @04:02AM
The title of this post means I have to recount this CSB.
I was a teenage busboy in around '74 or so. One of my co-workers was a nice old lady in her 70's, can't remember her name although I can recall her face. One day one of my other co-workers brought in some special brownies. We enjoyed them. Went to bus the cook's station, lady who's name I can't remember is singing "oh I wish I was an Oscar Meyer Weiner", and was much friendlier than her normal very friendly self (nothing sexual, just a really nice lady). I went to Mike and asked "did you give her a brownie?" "well, she asked if she could have one, what was I gonna say?".
Mike died last March of Lou Gehrig's disease, I'd known him since '63 or so. This CSB is in honor of Mike, hell of a cool dude who died way too young.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Snotnose on Wednesday November 11 2015, @03:47AM
Back when I worked for minimum wage, I lived with my parents - who bought my car and paid for the insurance, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to "afford the job." $3.35/hr (minus taxes)
I'm older than you, I think my minimum wage was something like $1.25 (mid 70s). Bought my own car and paid my own insurance, but my situation was the same. Then again, I was under 18 and still going to high school for half my minimum wage days.
Oh, and it's about time to repeal the laws that make it attractive to businesses to keep a huge staff of benefit-less part-timers.
This. When I worked minimum wage I either opened, closed, or worked the mid day shift. I knew what my hours were going to be 6 months in advance. My understanding of things now is management dicks with your hours so it's impossible for you to hold a second job, or go to school, or care for an old parent. In my case I was going to college. This is bullshit and needs to be stopped.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 11 2015, @02:57PM
This is bullshit and needs to be stopped.
Tell your boss your situation; if that doesn't help, quit and find another min. wage job
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday November 11 2015, @05:42PM
The problem is that a lot of low wage jobs screw with your scheduling. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/08/13/us/starbucks-workers-scheduling-hours.html [nytimes.com] More on "on-call" scheduling. http://www.wsj.com/articles/retailers-under-fire-for-work-schedules-1428890401 [wsj.com] Though, perhaps there is at least hope for some. http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/10/on-call-scheduling-labor/412132/ [theatlantic.com] (Apparently this last link has served targeted ads to Ad-Block Plus users or at least so says my plugin.)
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday November 11 2015, @09:29PM
I bought my own computer (8 bit) with money I had saved since birth, basically - that could have bought my first car instead ($1500 either way), but to earn $1500 for a car, I would have had to work a minimum of 500 hours, about 6 months part-time, and how to get to the job for 6 months with no car? Using the city bus would have turned a 4 hour shift into a 6 or 7 hour shift, and made it impossible to work close - which is what I mostly did due to scheduling conflicts with school, not to mention bus fare eating up the first half hour's pay every shift - but then once you have the car, I think insurance for a 17 year old male in my town (with perfect driving record) was about $1000/yr at the time, so, work another 4 months to pay the year's insurance - gas was cheap, that might have only been $300 a year for the gas needed to get to-from work... All in all, I suppose I could have afforded my own expenses to work the job, if I didn't have to pay for rent or food. The car expense could have been traded for sharing a cheap room within walking distance of the job, but then you're stuck shopping at the 7-11 for food, not exactly efficient.
Later, I had a manager who used to dick me around about my schedule - he and I had a set-to one day where he (Asst. Mgr.) said: "Maybe you don't need this job!?!" and I replied: "Maybe I don't." After that, my schedule became exactly what I wanted, more hours, more regular, on the days I asked for, and not on the days I didn't want. Truth was, I didn't need that job, so the bluff worked.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by sasha328 on Wednesday November 11 2015, @11:41PM
late last year I went to the US for a holiday with my wife. We ended up going to Macdonals for an apple pie!
Anyway, it wasn't until after we left the store that I realised what was wrong with Macdonalds (and hence the US).
Where I come from in Australia, the average age of the workers at Macdonalds is probaly very early twenties. And we have a minimum wage and universal health insurance. Very very few people make it a career at Macdonalds (they would be paid like in any other career anyway)
What I noticed after visiting the Macdonalds (and a couple of others while we were there) is that there were quite a few older workers behind the counters! I would estimate the average age to have been high twenties if not thirties!
I agree with JoeMerchant that low paying jobs should only be "spending money" and not for living off it, but that does not seem to be the case! There are way too many social exclusiveness in the US to allow such a basic idea to flourish these days.
I don't know what the problem is, but as an outsider it appears to us that as a society, you seem to find it is OK for people to be disadvantaged as long as you pay less tax or "keep the government small".
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 12 2015, @12:22AM
I think, as a society, US Americans think primarily about themselves and what will benefit themselves within the next several weeks to possibly months (for the above average on the long-sightedness scale.)
We have charity, we have great philosophers and societal architects, but we mostly elect bottom line bottom dollar tax cut promising politicians, and they mostly cut taxes for the people who gave them the money to get elected.
What amazes me is the brainwashing job that has been done on the masses, to the point that disadvantaged people either don't make the effort to vote to improve their situation, and even more amazingly, that a large block of the working poor will vote for candidates who promise to make things better for the rich, not the poor. When I have asked these people why, I mostly get answers based in fear, fear that with things as bad as they are (in their personal situation) anything that might cause their bosses to lay off or cut back would be even worse.
🌻🌻 [google.com]