re: "Fast Food Workers: You Don’t Deserve $15 an Hour to Flip Burgers and That’s OK"

How much robot repair men get paid

[quote]We have an ideology in this country to keep poor people dependent on government because that is power. The guy who earns one cookie takes another job to earn two cookies. When he does that, the government takes back the one cookie they gave him to subsidize his standard, which means he's working more and getting the same. The false dichotomy of left/right has people fighting over something that doesn't exist. There will always be poor people, because poor people are political power.

One of the best explanations I've seen. Kuddos!

This is why you hear: "If I gets me a job, it fricks up my check"...

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At the moment, McD's, Walmart, etc... are paying their employees to little money to live on. Those employees have to rely on welfare and food stamps to survive. So the tax payers are subsidizing the Walmart workforce while the higher ups rake in massive profits.

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You think upping wages is going to get people to magically get off of welfare? LOL. Why in the hell does someone want to work hard when what they need to live on is given to them? No they will continue to have a shitty paying job doing minimum work as possible while still living off the governments tit. People want a job, they dont want to work.

I worked at a local fast food restaurant in high school. That's what those jobs are for. People who aren't trained in any other professional field.

I find it pretty ironic also when I see fast food employees bitching about higher wages wearing a pair of $200 Jordan's or videoing the rally on an iPhone 6.

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Here's the problem with that. The kid with 10,000 cookies get's 3,000 of them taken, the kid with 4 cookies gets one of them taken, those cookies are then given to the kid with one cookie to make him feel better about his situation.

The reason it's difficult to feel for minimum wagers is because those "cookies" are used to provide housing, food and even free education and/or training so the kid with one cookie has a pathway to have 4 cookies.

If he chooses his corner with one cookie, there's no reason for sympathy.

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I don't agree with all of it - I don't disagree with all of it. I'm not going to take the time to pick it apart, but:

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The kid with 10,000 cookies get's 3,000 of them taken, the kid with 4 cookies gets one of them taken, those cookies are then given to the kid with one cookie to make him feel better about his situation

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The kid with 7000 cookies left still will never eat them all - and not ALL of the kids with one cookie need to "feel better about their situation." Some of them may genuinely need assistance with housing or food - in fact my guess is that the majority are (reasonably) good folks with limited skills/abilities/whatever. We can't ALL be winners, after all.

I usually just shrug my shoulders to this kind of stuff - I'm helpless to change the situation as a whole. There's no politician you can vote for that's interested in changing any of it.

Look - I was born to a lower middle class family, and I was wildly fortunate to have a good public school system to attend and parents that valued my education. Not every one is in that situation. If you have one cookie or two, you don't have to lose much before your hungry. (I think I've beaten that analogy to death.)

I've worked hard, gotten a good education and I (we) do fine for myself and my family. And I never lose sight of the fact that even as a top X% income earner - I'm way closer to being poor than I am to being one of the people who've been sucking up all of the income growth for the last 40 years.

Like I said, I (and you and we) are pretty helpless to fix it. I say all of this as an interested observer.... History shows us that great income inequality works itself out in the long run - and the pendulum will swing back towards the vast majority. I just hope we don't have to go through another Great Depression or World War to get there.

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The kid with 7000 cookies left still will never eat them all - and not ALL of the kids with one cookie need to "feel better about their situation." Some of them may genuinely need assistance with housing or food - in fact my guess is that the majority are (reasonably) good folks with limited skills/abilities/whatever. We can't ALL be winners, after all.

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No, he trades his cookies for things to decorate his corner, creating industry.

And your opinion is that minimum wage folks aren't capable of rising above their situation? What does it take to be a winner?

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Look - I was born to a lower middle class family, and I was wildly fortunate to have a good public school system to attend and parents that valued my education. Not every one is in that situation. If you have one cookie or two, you don't have to lose much before your hungry. (I think I've beaten that analogy to death.)

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I was born poor to parents who refused government help, with the exception of public schools which was mandatory. My whole neighborhood was full of working class poor, and every kid in the neighborhood graduated college.

Having few cookies historically created a drive for more. Today it creates regulations and intervention that keeps people poor.

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I've worked hard, gotten a good education and I (we) do fine for myself and my family. And I never lose sight of the fact that even as a top X% income earner - I'm way closer to being poor than I am to being one of the people who've been sucking up all of the income growth for the last 40 years.

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Same here. However I realize there is a path to success (which is relative) in this country and it's not difficult like it once was.

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Like I said, I (and you and we) are pretty helpless to fix it. I say all of this as an interested observer.... History shows us that great income inequality works itself out in the long run - and the pendulum will swing back towards the vast majority. I just hope we don't have to go through another Great Depression or World War to get there.

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Income inequality is a bogeyman. It's kind of funny it took the current administration for rather liberal economists to realize that.

I still haven't seen ANYONE answer this question:

If we as a society feel that fast food workers should get more money, then why is it fair to shoulder business owners with that wish, rather than society as a whole? Business owners pay workers what they add to the product (marginal product of labor). If SOCIETY thinks people with low marginal products are underpaid, then SOCIETY should take on the burden, not demand business owners to do it.

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No, he trades his cookies for things to decorate his corner, creating industry.

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If more people had 8 (or 10 or 12 cookies), they could spend two - which ultimately filters back to the "titan of industry." We're a consumer based economy - and we've spent 40+ years driving wages down for most consumers. It seems that having more people with (even slightly) more money would be better for all of us. Otherwise, who's going to buy everything? Wasn't this (sort of) Henry Ford's premise?

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And your opinion is that minimum wage folks aren't capable of rising above their situation?What does it take to be a winner?

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No, it's that not everyone is going to rise above. You can argue that all COULD, but clearly all won't, through luck or choice or poor decision or laziness or any other number of factors either controllable or uncontrollable - otherwise there is no bottom. What do you do with the people left behind? Dump 'em in the ocean?

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If we as a society feel that fast food workers should get more money, then why is it fair to shoulder business owners with that wish, rather than society as a whole?

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I don't think they deserve anything and also think it would hurt more min wage workers than people think. Business owners would adapt and hire less workers. Leaving more people without jobs.

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No, he trades his cookies for things to decorate his corner, creating industry.



If more people had 8 (or 10 or 12 cookies), they could spend two - which ultimately filters back to the "titan of industry." We're a consumer based economy - and we've spent 40+ years driving wages down for most consumers. It seems that having more people with (even slightly) more money would be better for all of us. Otherwise, who's going to buy everything? Wasn't this (sort of) Henry Ford's premise?

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Do you honestly believe those min wage workers would take a $15/hr job which requires more effort, and lose the government benefits they have?

Ford had a more industrious base of employees to choose from.

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And your opinion is that minimum wage folks aren't capable of rising above their situation?What does it take to be a winner?



No, it's that not everyone is going to rise above. You can argue that all COULD, but clearly all won't, through luck or choice or poor decision or laziness or any other number of factors

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The solution isn't to require workers to pay more per hour. You're better off subsidizing low paid workers and providing a track for them to improve their lot in life, which is tied to their benefits.

In Denmark, if you're off work for 6 months, you're required to improve your ability to get hired through training and/or education. Just getting a Class B CDL will improve a burger flippers lot in life.