Post: #1

Full article

Quote:Organizers say thousands of fast-food workers are set to stage walkouts in dozens of cities around the country, part of a push to get chains such as McDonald's, Taco Bell and Wendy's to pay workers higher wages.

Quote:Thursday's planned walkouts follow a series of strikes that began last November in New York City, then spread to cities including Chicago, Detroit and Seattle. Workers say they want $15 an hour, which would be about $31,000 a year for full-time employees. That's more than double the federal minimum wage, which many fast food workers make, of $7.25 an hour, or $15,000 a year.

Quote:Laila Jennings, a 29-year-old sales associate at T.J. Maxx, was eating at a McDonald's in New York City this week and said she hadn't heard of the movement. Still, she said she thinks workers should be paid more. "They work on their feet all day," Jennings said, adding that $12 to $15 an hour seemed fair.

There you go Laila..."They work on their feet all day". So they should make $31,000 a year with no skills or credentials because they stand while flipping burgers.

Quote:Shaniqua Davis, 20, lives in the Bronx with her boyfriend, who is unemployed, and their 1-year-old daughter. Davis has worked at a McDonald's a few blocks from her apartment for the past three months, earning $7.25 an hour. Her schedule varies, but she never gets close to 40 hours a week. "Forty? Never. They refuse to let you get to that (many) hours."

Her weekly paycheck is $150 or much lower. "One of my paychecks, I only got $71 on there. So I wasn't able to do much with that. My daughter needs stuff, I need to get stuff for my apartment," said Davis, who plans to take part in the strike Thursday.

She pays the rent with public assistance but struggles to afford food, diapers, subway and taxi fares, cable TV and other expenses with her paycheck.

"It's really hard," she said. "If I didn't have public assistance to help me out, I think I would have been out on the street already with the money I make at McDonald's."

Post: #2

Cool. If it works out, I'm going to apply at taco bell and stack that paper!

Post: #3

(08-28-2013 11:06 PM)Gopher Wrote:  "If I didn't have public assistance to help me out, I think I would have been out on the street already with the money I make at McDonald's."

This is the part you should have bolded. We pay for these people one way or another. If you don't require businesses to pay a living wage, these people simply turn to the government. So instead of a company's customers and shareholders bearing the burden like they should, the taxpayer picks up the tab. Due to the economic system we've created, people have to have some form of income to survive. It's not like everyone can just move to a farm and grow their own food. So if you deny low-skilled, low IQ people (there are millions of them) the ability to honestly earn a living wage, you are essentially sentencing them to death or a life of crime.

There are only three solutions to this problem:

1) Allow companies to pay extremely low wages, and subsidize the poor with government handouts (the status quo).

2) Force companies to pay higher wages, passing on the costs to their shareholders and customers (what the strikers want).

3) Eliminate all welfare and wage regulations, and if people can't make themselves productive enough to survive, let them die (something most people would find morally unacceptable).

So realistically, what are we supposed to do? It's easy to advocate for strict libertarian capitalism on the internet, but are you willing to shovel millions of emaciated bodies into mass graves because they all starved to death as a consequence of being economically useless? An ideology is useless if it can't be practically implemented or morally supported by the mass of the people.

Post: #4

I've always been pro-union and pro-worker's rights. I hope they win and get more money.

Post: #5

(08-28-2013 11:29 PM)scorpion Wrote:  1) Allow companies to pay extremely low wages, and subsidize the poor with government handouts (the status quo).

Ron Unz, publisher of the American Conservative, makes an interesting case for steeply increasing the federal minimum wage. He admits it may increase unemployment and raise prices for consumer goods and services but favors it in part because it will discourage illegal immigration. The man is savvy enough to have gotten his argument published in the ultra-liberal online rag Salon.

He agrees with you that our current system offers a low minimum wage but just forces taxpayers to subsidize low-wage workers. Maybe we'd be better off cutting welfare, SNAP, and the Earned Income Tax Credit and just increasing the minimum wage instead.

"Given the obvious connection between more immigrants competing for jobs and a relentless downward pressure on wages, I would suggest that the easiest way for both Democrats and Republicans to demonstrate that they are not wholly owned subsidiaries of our business class would be to explicitly link the two issues by attaching a large rise in the federal minimum wage to any proposed immigration reform. After all, the primary force which originally drew those 11 million illegals to America was the attractive availability of so many millions of low-wage jobs in our country, and unless this suction force at the bottom of the economy is eliminated, more border crossers will eventually come to take their places once the current ones are legalized.

As I have argued at length elsewhere, immigration and the minimum wage are deeply intertwined policy issues, and should naturally be addressed together. Raising our minimum wage to $12 per hour as part of the proposed amnesty legislation would probably do more to solve future immigration problems than would any sort of electronic fence or national ID card."

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/t...ve-action/

Post: #6

I don't eat fast food. Let them strike away and let the fat people suffer.

Post: #7

(08-28-2013 11:29 PM)scorpion Wrote:  

(08-28-2013 11:06 PM)Gopher Wrote:  "If I didn't have public assistance to help me out, I think I would have been out on the street already with the money I make at McDonald's."

This is the part you should have bolded. We pay for these people one way or another. If you don't require businesses to pay a living wage, these people simply turn to the government. So instead of a company's customers and shareholders bearing the burden like they should, the taxpayer picks up the tab. Due to the economic system we've created, people have to have some form of income to survive. It's not like everyone can just move to a farm and grow their own food. So if you deny low-skilled, low IQ people (there are millions of them) the ability to honestly earn a living wage, you are essentially sentencing them to death or a life of crime.

There are only three solutions to this problem:

1) Allow companies to pay extremely low wages, and subsidize the poor with government handouts (the status quo).

2) Force companies to pay higher wages, passing on the costs to their shareholders and customers (what the strikers want).

3) Eliminate all welfare and wage regulations, and if people can't make themselves productive enough to survive, let them die (something most people would find morally unacceptable).

So realistically, what are we supposed to do? It's easy to advocate for strict libertarian capitalism on the internet, but are you willing to shovel millions of emaciated bodies into mass graves because they all starved to death as a consequence of being economically useless? An ideology is useless if it can't be practically implemented or morally supported by the mass of the people.

I agree with you that the issue is a complex one with a lot of repercussions. That said, I stand firmly with option 3.

I don't think though that if you put people into extreme circumstances they will all just keel over and die though. Most would find some way to survive. People in America are so accustomed to living comfortable lives though that it would seem that giving no support to them would lead to certain peril. The reality though is that there are many places on earth where there is no government assistance and people are finding ways to survive.

You can't just subsidize the labor market with Federal minimum wages for the same reason you can't effectively subsidize any sector in the economy. What happens when you double the cost of labor is that the costs are passed on to the customer. You would have to believe that if overnight the costs of fast food doubled there would be less demand for that food. And what would follow is that there would be less need for labor in these businesses, leading to the elimination of jobs for people with no skills. So instead of making $8 / hr. There are people making $0 / hr.

Minimum wage jobs are not meant to be for people who need to raise a child and support your unemployed significant other. Minimum wage jobs are for entry level people with no marketable skills so that they can gain experience and then move on to better jobs who will hire them based on past work experience and increased responsibility.

If you take away a business owners ability to take risks with a new employee that has no skills or experience by making it too expensive to be economically viable all of these positions that exist and make it possible to enter the labor market dry up and then you will be left with an increased amount of people who, due to the fact that there were no low paying entry level positions, never get experience and are therefore never able to find work.

My solution is to just allow the market to function without federally mandated and arbitrary wage laws.

Post: #8

(08-28-2013 11:33 PM)Parlay44 Wrote:  I've always been pro-union and pro-worker's rights. I hope they win and get more money.

I am very much pro-collective bargaining as well.

Post: #9

This is an interesting dilemma.

The right and the left both are not looking at this issue, IMHO, with both eyes open.

The problem today is that we effectively subsidize low-wage workers (like those in fast food) in the USA with govt. benefits. Those on the right don't really want to address this problem other than to say that the market pays people what they are "worth" and that we should cut govt. programs that help the poor if we are worried about subsidizing the poor, which is not a very popular stance since the number of "working poor" is steadily increasing in this country.

Increasing the min. wage or unionizing fast food workers would shift the cost of subsidizing these employees back over to the employers. However, business are not in the business of providing charity, so they would resort to automation and/or raising prices. The number of employees hired would drop, but those with jobs would no longer be subsidized by the government.

I don't see much chance of raising the minimum wage given how divided congress is, but these fast food workers could unionize.

Post: #10

(08-28-2013 11:47 PM)Gopher Wrote:  

(08-28-2013 11:29 PM)scorpion Wrote:  

(08-28-2013 11:06 PM)Gopher Wrote:  "If I didn't have public assistance to help me out, I think I would have been out on the street already with the money I make at McDonald's."

This is the part you should have bolded. We pay for these people one way or another. If you don't require businesses to pay a living wage, these people simply turn to the government. So instead of a company's customers and shareholders bearing the burden like they should, the taxpayer picks up the tab. Due to the economic system we've created, people have to have some form of income to survive. It's not like everyone can just move to a farm and grow their own food. So if you deny low-skilled, low IQ people (there are millions of them) the ability to honestly earn a living wage, you are essentially sentencing them to death or a life of crime.

There are only three solutions to this problem:

1) Allow companies to pay extremely low wages, and subsidize the poor with government handouts (the status quo).

2) Force companies to pay higher wages, passing on the costs to their shareholders and customers (what the strikers want).

3) Eliminate all welfare and wage regulations, and if people can't make themselves productive enough to survive, let them die (something most people would find morally unacceptable).

So realistically, what are we supposed to do? It's easy to advocate for strict libertarian capitalism on the internet, but are you willing to shovel millions of emaciated bodies into mass graves because they all starved to death as a consequence of being economically useless? An ideology is useless if it can't be practically implemented or morally supported by the mass of the people.

I agree with you that the issue is a complex one with a lot of repercussions. That said, I stand firmly with option 3.

I don't think though that if you put people into extreme circumstances they will all just keel over and die though. Most would find some way to survive. People in America are so accustomed to living comfortable lives though that it would seem that giving no support to them would lead to certain peril. The reality though is that there are many places on earth where there is no government assistance and people are finding ways to survive.

You can't just subsidize the labor market with Federal minimum wages for the same reason you can't effectively subsidize any sector in the economy. What happens when you double the cost of labor is that the costs are passed on to the customer. You would have to believe that if overnight the costs of fast food doubled there would be less demand for that food. And what would follow is that there would be less need for labor in these businesses, leading to the elimination of jobs for people with no skills. So instead of making $8 / hr. There are people making $0 / hr.

Minimum wage jobs are not meant to be for people who need to raise a child and support your unemployed significant other. Minimum wage jobs are for entry level people with no marketable skills so that they can gain experience and then move on to better jobs who will hire them based on past work experience and increased responsibility.

If you take away a business owners ability to take risks with a new employee that has no skills or experience by making it too expensive to be economically viable all of these positions that exist and make it possible to enter the labor market dry up and then you will be left with an increased amount of people who, due to the fact that there were no low paying entry level positions, never get experience and are therefore never able to find work.

My solution is to just allow the market to function without federally mandated and arbitrary wage laws.

Good luck with this.

The problem libertarians don't factor into their theories is that when a big enough group of people make up the poor, they change the laws to favor workers' rights through elections or revolution.

Post: #11

They will be replaced by robots as soon as economically feasible. This just puts them one step closer.

Post: #12

Quote:"It's really hard," she said. "If I didn't have public assistance to help me out, I think I would have been out on the street already with the money I make at McDonald's."

Of course Shaniqua, it's McDonalds fault you have to work there. They're to blame for your shit life.

Post: #13

Quote:There you go Laila..."They work on their feet all day". So they should make $31,000 a year with no skills or credentials because they stand while flipping burgers.

I feel people with no skills or education(regular people) deserve to make at the very least enough money to afford food, shelter and clothing.

The problem is wages are dictated by corporations. Cost of goods and services are controlled by corporations. On paper it may look like a self-regulating economy but at the highest levels there's unspoken collusion and price-fixing. It's modern day slavery.

Post: #14

(08-28-2013 11:57 PM)Bolthouse Wrote:  

Quote:"It's really hard," she said. "If I didn't have public assistance to help me out, I think I would have been out on the street already with the money I make at McDonald's."

Of course Shaniqua, it's McDonalds fault you have to work there. They're to blame for your shit life.

Suppose someone is born with a lower than average IQ. Perhaps Shaniqua in this story doesn't qualify, but I wouldn't be surprised if she does. Does it make sense to blame them for that fact? To shame them?

No, of course not. That doesn't mean they deserve a high standard of living necessarily, since that could discourage people of higher intelligence from fulfilling their potential.

But it would mean that we should show some empathy for their condition.

Post: #15

Its a no win for the workers. As others have pointed out the costs will get passed on to the customers. All this means is that less customers will pay double for a burger at Mcdonalds etc and go somewhere else with their money for the quality they get. The whole business model of fast food is that it is cheap. Once that business model changes fast food will not attract as many customers and will either go out of business or hire less workers.

Post: #16

(08-28-2013 11:55 PM)The Texas Prophet Wrote:  

(08-28-2013 11:47 PM)Gopher Wrote:  

(08-28-2013 11:29 PM)scorpion Wrote:  

(08-28-2013 11:06 PM)Gopher Wrote:  "If I didn't have public assistance to help me out, I think I would have been out on the street already with the money I make at McDonald's."

This is the part you should have bolded. We pay for these people one way or another. If you don't require businesses to pay a living wage, these people simply turn to the government. So instead of a company's customers and shareholders bearing the burden like they should, the taxpayer picks up the tab. Due to the economic system we've created, people have to have some form of income to survive. It's not like everyone can just move to a farm and grow their own food. So if you deny low-skilled, low IQ people (there are millions of them) the ability to honestly earn a living wage, you are essentially sentencing them to death or a life of crime.

There are only three solutions to this problem:

1) Allow companies to pay extremely low wages, and subsidize the poor with government handouts (the status quo).

2) Force companies to pay higher wages, passing on the costs to their shareholders and customers (what the strikers want).

3) Eliminate all welfare and wage regulations, and if people can't make themselves productive enough to survive, let them die (something most people would find morally unacceptable).

So realistically, what are we supposed to do? It's easy to advocate for strict libertarian capitalism on the internet, but are you willing to shovel millions of emaciated bodies into mass graves because they all starved to death as a consequence of being economically useless? An ideology is useless if it can't be practically implemented or morally supported by the mass of the people.

I agree with you that the issue is a complex one with a lot of repercussions. That said, I stand firmly with option 3.

I don't think though that if you put people into extreme circumstances they will all just keel over and die though. Most would find some way to survive. People in America are so accustomed to living comfortable lives though that it would seem that giving no support to them would lead to certain peril. The reality though is that there are many places on earth where there is no government assistance and people are finding ways to survive.

You can't just subsidize the labor market with Federal minimum wages for the same reason you can't effectively subsidize any sector in the economy. What happens when you double the cost of labor is that the costs are passed on to the customer. You would have to believe that if overnight the costs of fast food doubled there would be less demand for that food. And what would follow is that there would be less need for labor in these businesses, leading to the elimination of jobs for people with no skills. So instead of making $8 / hr. There are people making $0 / hr.

Minimum wage jobs are not meant to be for people who need to raise a child and support your unemployed significant other. Minimum wage jobs are for entry level people with no marketable skills so that they can gain experience and then move on to better jobs who will hire them based on past work experience and increased responsibility.

If you take away a business owners ability to take risks with a new employee that has no skills or experience by making it too expensive to be economically viable all of these positions that exist and make it possible to enter the labor market dry up and then you will be left with an increased amount of people who, due to the fact that there were no low paying entry level positions, never get experience and are therefore never able to find work.

My solution is to just allow the market to function without federally mandated and arbitrary wage laws.

Good luck with this.

The problem libertarians don't factor into their theories is that when a big enough group of people make up the poor, they change the laws to favor workers' rights through elections or revolution.

And in doing so they make the situation even worse.

For example, Communism.

Post: #17

The issue isn't what to do about low wage workers. This is a distraction to the fact that what used to be considered a "good job" has been outsourced to another country where they can get labor for pennies an hour. If the job requires skill, companies just import someone cheaper. In the global market, the American worker is too expensive and too entitled.

Post: #18

Quote:Its a no win for the workers.

That's not how the allocation of resources works. There actually is no empirical evidence that scale of the minimum wage affects employment in the long run, it's hypothesised out of Ricardian equivalence where macroeconomics is an aggregate of microeconomics.

keynes's theory is most convincing in assert this is false.

Quote:As others have pointed out the costs will get passed on to the customers. All this means is that less customers will pay double for a burger at Mcdonalds etc and go somewhere else with their money for the quality they get.

Which means tis is where the jobs will be, thus labour will get allocated there.

Quote:The whole business model of fast food is that it is cheap. Once that business model changes fast food will not attract as many customers and will either go out of business or hire less workers.

Which may not be a bad thing. Considering the theory of uncosted externalities, or to put it another way, "privatise the profits, socialise the losses"....

Whilst making a lot of money from low priced labour (arguably underpaid) and selling poor nutrition, the real cost of low priced labour being supplemented by welfare increments, as well as a healthcare burden of this poor nutrition, indicates that a large number of society is underwriting this business model.

Post: #19

(08-28-2013 11:29 PM)scorpion Wrote:  

(08-28-2013 11:06 PM)Gopher Wrote:  "If I didn't have public assistance to help me out, I think I would have been out on the street already with the money I make at McDonald's."

This is the part you should have bolded. We pay for these people one way or another. If you don't require businesses to pay a living wage, these people simply turn to the government. So instead of a company's customers and shareholders bearing the burden like they should, the taxpayer picks up the tab. Due to the economic system we've created, people have to have some form of income to survive. It's not like everyone can just move to a farm and grow their own food. So if you deny low-skilled, low IQ people (there are millions of them) the ability to honestly earn a living wage, you are essentially sentencing them to death or a life of crime.

There are only three solutions to this problem:

1) Allow companies to pay extremely low wages, and subsidize the poor with government handouts (the status quo).

2) Force companies to pay higher wages, passing on the costs to their shareholders and customers (what the strikers want).

3) Eliminate all welfare and wage regulations, and if people can't make themselves productive enough to survive, let them die (something most people would find morally unacceptable).

4) Stop importing cheap labor from the global market. Allow the forces of supply and demand to equilibrate locally as they should. Rely on the labor market in the same market you're selling your goods rather than sidestepping that labor market in favor of Mexico's.

Post: #20

The purpose of having a minimum wage is that every employer has to pay it, so that as far as business competition goes, things even out through the economy. If every business was paying their workers the same higher wage, they would all raise prices by a similar amount, so none of them would suffer a competitive disadvantage as a result. Additionally, their employees would then enjoy greater purchasing power and would be able to contribute more demand to the economy.

This is the same principle behind Henry Ford paying his assembly line workers a high enough wage to be able to afford one of his Model T's.

In a consumer-driven economy, it's important that the population has enough purchasing power to actually consume.

Post: #21

(08-29-2013 12:04 AM)Parlay44 Wrote:  

Quote:There you go Laila..."They work on their feet all day". So they should make $31,000 a year with no skills or credentials because they stand while flipping burgers.

I feel people with no skills or education(regular people) deserve to make at the very least enough money to afford food, shelter and clothing.

The problem is wages are dictated by corporations. Cost of goods and services are controlled by corporations. On paper it may look like a self-regulating economy but at the highest levels there's unspoken collusion and price-fixing. It's modern day slavery.

I feel people with no skills or education should get to work gaining skills, education, or experience, and stop blaming the fact that they don't earn more money on anyone and everyone but themselves.

If you feel that way then why don't you just give everything you earn to them except for the bare necessities of your life. That is essentially what you are expecting from the franchise owners.

Fast food franchise owners are not typically millionaires.

Post: #22

(08-29-2013 12:16 AM)scorpion Wrote:  The purpose of having a minimum wage is that every employer has to pay it, so that as far as business competition goes, things even out through the economy. If every business was paying their workers the same higher wage, they would all raise prices by a similar amount, so none of them would suffer a competitive disadvantage as a result. Additionally, their employees would then enjoy greater purchasing power and would be able to contribute more demand to the economy.

This is the same principle behind Henry Ford paying his assembly line workers a high enough wage to be able to afford one of his Model T's.

In a consumer-driven economy, it's important that the population has enough purchasing power to actually consume.

My father says that the rich have forgotten that they need people to be able to buy their crap.

Post: #23

(08-29-2013 12:11 AM)Gopher Wrote:  

(08-28-2013 11:55 PM)The Texas Prophet Wrote:  

(08-28-2013 11:47 PM)Gopher Wrote:  

(08-28-2013 11:29 PM)scorpion Wrote:  

(08-28-2013 11:06 PM)Gopher Wrote:  "If I didn't have public assistance to help me out, I think I would have been out on the street already with the money I make at McDonald's."

This is the part you should have bolded. We pay for these people one way or another. If you don't require businesses to pay a living wage, these people simply turn to the government. So instead of a company's customers and shareholders bearing the burden like they should, the taxpayer picks up the tab. Due to the economic system we've created, people have to have some form of income to survive. It's not like everyone can just move to a farm and grow their own food. So if you deny low-skilled, low IQ people (there are millions of them) the ability to honestly earn a living wage, you are essentially sentencing them to death or a life of crime.

There are only three solutions to this problem:

1) Allow companies to pay extremely low wages, and subsidize the poor with government handouts (the status quo).

2) Force companies to pay higher wages, passing on the costs to their shareholders and customers (what the strikers want).

3) Eliminate all welfare and wage regulations, and if people can't make themselves productive enough to survive, let them die (something most people would find morally unacceptable).

So realistically, what are we supposed to do? It's easy to advocate for strict libertarian capitalism on the internet, but are you willing to shovel millions of emaciated bodies into mass graves because they all starved to death as a consequence of being economically useless? An ideology is useless if it can't be practically implemented or morally supported by the mass of the people.

I agree with you that the issue is a complex one with a lot of repercussions. That said, I stand firmly with option 3.

I don't think though that if you put people into extreme circumstances they will all just keel over and die though. Most would find some way to survive. People in America are so accustomed to living comfortable lives though that it would seem that giving no support to them would lead to certain peril. The reality though is that there are many places on earth where there is no government assistance and people are finding ways to survive.

You can't just subsidize the labor market with Federal minimum wages for the same reason you can't effectively subsidize any sector in the economy. What happens when you double the cost of labor is that the costs are passed on to the customer. You would have to believe that if overnight the costs of fast food doubled there would be less demand for that food. And what would follow is that there would be less need for labor in these businesses, leading to the elimination of jobs for people with no skills. So instead of making $8 / hr. There are people making $0 / hr.

Minimum wage jobs are not meant to be for people who need to raise a child and support your unemployed significant other. Minimum wage jobs are for entry level people with no marketable skills so that they can gain experience and then move on to better jobs who will hire them based on past work experience and increased responsibility.

If you take away a business owners ability to take risks with a new employee that has no skills or experience by making it too expensive to be economically viable all of these positions that exist and make it possible to enter the labor market dry up and then you will be left with an increased amount of people who, due to the fact that there were no low paying entry level positions, never get experience and are therefore never able to find work.

My solution is to just allow the market to function without federally mandated and arbitrary wage laws.

Good luck with this.

The problem libertarians don't factor into their theories is that when a big enough group of people make up the poor, they change the laws to favor workers' rights through elections or revolution.

And in doing so they make the situation even worse.

For example, Communism.

Humans are not always rational actors. It is one of the real flaws of economics since the rational choice theory is so fundamental to the economics-centered view of the the world. People use emotion and instinct a lot more than they use logic in making decisions.

Post: #24

Humans are not always rational actors. It is one of the real flaws of economics since the rational choice theory is so fundamental to the economics-centered view of the the world. People use emotion and instinct a lot more than they use logic in making decisions.
[/quote]

Agreed.

Post: #25

(08-29-2013 12:17 AM)Gopher Wrote:  I feel people with no skills or education should get to work gaining skills, education, or experience, and stop blaming the fact that they don't earn more money on anyone and everyone but themselves.

'skills' are a relative.

Someone has to be the least skilled person in the economy. If everyone bar one person had a PhD, then the other person with even a masters degree is the least credentialled.

Thus, someone has to be the lowest paid person in the economy.

What you debate about philosophically is what sort of life should the lowest skilled person have, and many peole would assert the lowest skilled of today have had their quality of life diminish compared to recent times past.