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AlterNet reports:
Imagine a world where fast food workers can pay their rent and utility bills plus buy their children food and clothes. Well, you don't have to imagine it because such a place exists. It's called Denmark.
A New York Times article on Tuesday (paywalled) chronicled the life of a Danish fast food worker named Hampus Elofsson, who works 40 hours a week at a Burger King in Copenhagen, and makes enough not only to pay his bills, but to save some money and enjoy a night out with friends. His wage: $20 per hour. Yep, you read that right. The base wage in Denmark is close to two and a half times what American fast food workers make.
Elofsson's pay is the kind of wage that Anthony Moore, a shift manager in Tampa, Florida can only dream about. [Moore] earns $9 an hour for his low-level management job, or about $300 per week, and like half of America's fast food workers, he relies on some form of public assistance to make up the difference between that wage and barely eking out a living.
[...] What Danish fast food workers have that their American counterparts do not is a powerful union and fast food franchise owners who are willing to make a little less of a profit...though they still do make a profit.
Economics professor Richard Wolff talked about Denmark in a webcast (20MB MP3) back in July.
I also found his discussion of the "recovery" of the USA economy (between the segment on the GM bailout and the one on "US" megacorps evading taxes) to be especially worthwhile. His weekly webcasts are also available for about half the bandwidth and storage space from KPFA's archive.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by jcross on Wednesday October 29 2014, @03:15PM
Sure, every man for himself, the Free Market, and so on. Everyone likes to make a big deal about these ideals while at the same time chasing subsidies from the government. As long as McDonald's and their ilk can rely on the US government to help support their workers, they're getting a subsidy. All subsidies have a hidden or not-so-hidden cost on the other side. In this case it's the taxpayer bearing the burden, and also (hypothetical) ethical restaurant chains who can't pay their employees a living wage and still compete with McDonald's pricing. If there were the political will, the trick would be to remove the subsidy without weakening the social safety net. Raising the minimum wage seems the simplest way to do it, and actually this has support from many on the right because it makes good business sense and leads to smaller government.
(Score: 2) by jasassin on Thursday October 30 2014, @07:08AM
I read after Seattle raised the minimum wage, the rent increased the same amount. I don't think less government is the right idea. Less government in the right mindset means if we could pay you less we would. We would work you till you die because there are plenty of poor people out there who can replace you. The poster above talking about 29 hour weeks and not being able to schedule a second job should be modded up. Raising wages is cool if they have some laws that say rent and gas and shit doesn't immediately skyrocket to compensate for the pay raise.
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(Score: 2) by jcross on Thursday October 30 2014, @01:19PM
That's an excellent point. I think just raising the minimum wage is an inadequate response but I didn't want to get into the messy and controversial details of how welfare policy would have to change too, and I just don't know how that would work best. Totally pulling the numbers out of my ass, but if workers are being paid a minimum wage of $7 an hour and can get welfare to boost that to $12 an hour for a living wage, then raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour while retaining the same welfare benefits would mean landlords could raise rent until $20 an hour was a living wage. I'm pretty sure it's more complicated than that, though, and that welfare benefits do depend on how much money you're making or something like that. Also I haven't looked at the numbers but my guess is that Seattle rents would be rising anyway because it's a boom time there. Likely minimum wage workers will increasingly have to bus in from further out of town, but maybe at $15 an hour they can live a little closer if they choose to prioritize that. It's not an easy problem to solve, for sure, and I'm in no way advocating "small government", just a government that allocates its resources more for the benefit of the people than the corps, and takes into account the unintended consequences of any economic regulation.