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A quarter-century ago, there were 56 teenagers in the labor force for every "limited service" restaurant — that is, the kind where you order at the counter.
Today, there are fewer than half as many, which is a reflection both of teenagers' decreasing work force participation and of the explosive growth in restaurants.
But in an industry where cheap labor is an essential component in providing inexpensive food, a shortage of workers is changing the equation upon which fast-food places have long relied. This can be seen in rising wages, in a growth of incentives, and in the sometimes odd situations that business owners find themselves in.
Too many restaurants, not enough teens to work in them.
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A Fast-Food Problem: Where Have All the Teenagers Gone?
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We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.
-- Eric Hoffer
(Score: 1, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Thursday July 19 2018, @04:00PM (12 children)
Where have the teenagers gone? I guess you wrapped them up in tissue, and flushed them down the toilet. Or, payed Planned Parenthood to D&E them. Or, maybe you abused them to death as toddlers. Or left them to roast in the back seat of your car. Or, neglected them while they explored drugs, and eventually overdosed.
No teenagers. Imagine that. Americans have been so proud of their falling fertility rates for the past thirty years - oh, so very proud. So proud, that today half of America wants to adopt teens from all over Latin America.
Bunch of infertile and impotent old fools, wondering why there are no teens to teen work? This is too much to take!
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @04:17PM (4 children)
Plenty of sex going on here, but we have this modern invention called birth control (several types). You might want to look it up if it hasn't gotten to your corner of the country yet?
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by Runaway1956 on Thursday July 19 2018, @04:35PM (3 children)
This is the age of the incels and mgtows and lickbutts. Procreation is history.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @06:00PM (2 children)
Incels started out as an internet-woe-is-me-group. Those are a dime a dozen and should not be taken seriously. Third Wave Feminism turned it into a euphemism for homosexual men.
I have met men who struggled mightily with "getting laid" until they realized that what women want is not what Third Wave Feminism says they want. (Third Wave Feminism has a warped perspective that demonstrably does not resonate with heterosexual women--demonstrated in part by the number of white women who voted for Trump, demonstrated in another part by the number of women who want to be housewives instead of career women, und so weiter. Don't shoot the messenger here, folks. But the neoliberals will shoot the messenger and continue on with their heads in the sand.)
I have never once met a bona fide incel. I've met some guys with children who made me scratch my head in disbelief that they aren't incels. Real incels? Nope. It's reactionary, homophobic propaganda from Third Wave Feminism.
Of course, you're also a reactionary, so it makes sense you'd buy into it. TRWTF is that the Democratic Party thinks it can save its relevancy by out-reactionary-ing reactionaries and out-McCarthy-ing the party of McCarthy. (See the "Red to Blue" strategy and the "CIA Democrats.")
Well, I should ask. Would you ever become a feminist or vote D team if they were reactionary enough?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @06:56PM (1 child)
"Straight" incels are real. At least, I see one in the mirror everyday.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @08:33PM
Incel is not a new fangled concept. We used to call them ugly fucks and social retards. We would talk about how they couldn't get screwed at a convention of Jewish insurance salesmen. They couldn't get a French whore to open her legs with a wheel of cheese.
Thing is, women are just as desperate to get laid as men. I've seen some fugly guys with a woman in tow. Makes me realize, there's someone for everyone, no matter if their face looks like a foot. Maybe your standards are too high. Remember, women all look the same in the dark.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @04:24PM (3 children)
Or? Behold the power of And.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday July 19 2018, @04:40PM (2 children)
And your ass. You can't do all of the above to the same child - it's an either/or thing. If you roast them as toddlers, you can't later neglect them while they explore drugs. You'll have to pick one means of abuse per child, you can't have them all. WTF did you go to school, 1920's Leningrad?
(Score: 3, Funny) by Sulla on Thursday July 19 2018, @04:51PM
Thats hardly fair. If he went to school in Leningrad his choice of abuse would be starvation.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 20 2018, @05:05AM
Leningrad? Nono, just another black kid growing up in Mississippi.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @07:10PM (1 child)
The fertility rate hasn't dropped anywhere near in half. The key words you might have missed were "in the workforce". I think a lot of teens aren't in the workforce because they don't have to be. Too much time in their rooms and on their phones. If you're not going out to movies and such, what do you need pocket money for, so why work for it? I had a girlfriend, took her out on dates, needed gas money for the car, etc. etc. A lot of teens these days aren't even motivated to get a driver's license!
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday July 20 2018, @01:53PM
Back up a step. If the teen already owns a car and can afford the movies and the cellphone (stuff no teen used to have, hmmm), what does he need with a fast-food job?
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Thursday July 19 2018, @11:30PM
I think you're Catholic. And for a good Catholic, not so many options as the rest of us have. Catholic is great, I love Catholic, it's very special. But it's not me. And it's not a lot of us.
The rest of us, we all want to screw. And so many like children. But, very expensive to raise a child right. The wet nurse, the au pair, the nanny, the tuition, the outfits -- it all adds up. And the globalists sold out our Country. Killed our economy. Killed our middle class. And so many folks said, "let's screw but not make children." Which is an option. For non-Catholic it's an option. Terrible economy, a lot of times it looks like the best option.
But don't worry, we're changing all that. In order to maintain our security as a nation, we understand that we must have economic strength as well. Huge huge tax cut -- thanks to me & our Republicans in Congress. And nobody believes it; if I would have said it, they would have said, "What a horrible thing to say, what an exaggeration." If I would have shot a 75, they’d say, "There’s no way he could do it. There’s no way." They might be right about that, actually. They would have said there’s no way -- 3.4 million new jobs since Election Day. They would have said, "No way." They would have said, and a lot of people would have said.
Unemployment claims are at the lowest point in 44 years. That means people are working again. African American unemployment is in the lowest it’s ever been. The history of our country -- it’s at the lowest in the history of our country. Remember I used to say "What do you have to lose? Vote for Trump. What do you have to lose?" Hispanic American unemployment, the lowest in the history of our country. By the way, women -- I was saying, two weeks ago, "21 years." Now, I’m saying, "66 years." I think, within two weeks, I’ll be saying "the lowest in history." The lowest unemployment in 66 years.
Last year, in West Virginia, per capita personal income grew more than 40 percent faster than the national average. Coal exports -- you remember I said "Coal. Coal. Clean coal." Right? We always say "clean coal." And what they can do now is incredible with coal. Clean coal exports skyrocketed by more than 60 percent nationwide, and I’m so proud of that.