Fast food jobs in NY evidently attract a lot of comedians.

At a minimum, it should support the same lifestyle it did fifty years ago, which would be roughly $10 an hour. But the ideal in this country is that workers become more productive. Indeed, I suspect today's McDonald's burger flipper is more productive than the one from fifty years ago. If he is, he should not only make as much as his grandfather did, he should make more. Sometimes strikes are how we determine what the rate should be.

Why "should" it? Because you say so? Maybe you're feeling ENTITLED?

When is the last time you were in a fast food restaurant?

It has nothing to do with entitlement. It does have to do with getting America, the developed world, to a certain level. Kudlow has stated that the rich are indeed growing richer. However, there is a certain tipping point in which, even if you are on the bottom, lifestyles mark you as being a part of the developed world. If I were in line for a sudden " windfall", I would be certain, I had a laptop, android phone, automobile, etc BEFORE the inflation catches up to me. Even though the gap between rich and poor has grown, the prices of the high ticket items is still affordable. The 399 laptop, and on and on.

Brilliant idea! Think of how much it would stimulate business and encourage entrepreneurship!

Right now the big risk of starting a business is start up costs and that you may have misjudged your market. This keeps a lot of the underprivileged and disenfranchised away from the American Dream of being your own boss.

If we set profits across the board--say 1.5% or some similarly fair amount for the Evil Corporate Fatcats, then we could take money from companies like Exxon, Haliburton, Coca Cola, McDonalds, Microsoft, and Wal*mart and give it to the guy who runs the T-shirt cart in them mall. Or the kid who mows your lawn.

And the best part? The more you spend, the more you make--guaranteed!

I don't know why we didn't think of this before!

That's just crazy talk. Obviously, it should be held onto by the Feds. But not all the Feds. Just the "progressives". Because, seriously now, they know What's Best For Us.

I could, conceivably, pour concrete myself. I don't have any of the equipment or any experience or any connections so it would be painful and expensive. So when I needed a concrete floor for my garage I paid my neighbor, the concrete contractor, very well to come over and do it.

I can do a little plumbing. But when my water heater finally went tits up I paid the local water heater company very well to send one of their people over to replace it. And a good call that was too, because there was a bad valve in my pipes that would have been a serious pain in the ass for me to replace. It was a pain in the ass for the plumber they sent too, but he still got the job done in under 30 minutes.

So far I haven't needed an electrician for the basic things I've done like reconnecting an exterior light, terminating an exterior outlet, and replacing a couple switches, but if I ever decide to add some outlets in the garage instead of running extension cords as needed, I'll pay someone good money to come in and do it for me.

I've put in more than a couple roofs so when it was time to replace mine I considered doing it myself. I'd have had to line up a dumpster and it probably would have been a 2 week project. So I took interest when my neighbors hired a roofing company to do theirs. I noticed it while making my morning coffee and thought I'd keep tabs on how long it would take them to do the job. By lunch time they'd stripped the old roof and ate their bag lunches on the roof. By 3pm they had the new roof on and were packing up to go home. Needless to say, I decided to pay someone very good money to put a roof on my place instead of doing it myself.

I also prepare my own food. Oh, I'll hit Subway or the drive-thru if I'm in a hurry, but I refuse to pay much more than $5 for that. And I wouldn't dream of having a 15 year old or a drug addict come over to my house and pay him $20 to make me a hamburger.

No fucking shit. The average McDonald's is more productive than one 50 years ago.

This is because they have big expensive robotic french fry machines, where you push a button to make the fries and it beeps at you to tell you when the fries are done. I imagine the ovens are similar. Put the meal in, push the appropriate button, take it out. And the processes for assembling the meal are literally down to a science. McDonald's has spent their profits on developing that to the point where you could practically train a monkey to make a passable McDonald's Happy Meal.

Conversely, can you imagine if, 50 years ago, McDonald's decided, "You know what? We make plenty. We can afford to give our poor workers a little more"? They never would have developed these capabilities and continually escalating labor costs would have eventually made it impossible to make a meal at a price point a customer would be willing to pay for.

Actually you know what? You don't need to imagine. Just look at Detroit's auto industry. High labor costs took away money that could have been used for R&D, market research, and innovation. GM couldn't spend the same amount of money on building the car people wanted to buy that Toyota could because such a large chunk of the cost of making a car was tied up in things like pension plans for the spouses of retired autoworkers--something that added exactly ZERO value to that car rolling off the assembly line.

If you want to be a burger flipper, learn to live like a burger flipper. Don't take a job as a burger flipper and then complain about the pay.

I'll pay a plumber or electrician plenty of money because they know how to do something I do not, and because the costs of attempting to do it myself and screwing up are so high.

I am ALSO willing to pay a certain level of premium for the convenience of having a burger made for me at a restaurant, but since I CAN make a burger myself, the premium is much smaller than it is for the skilled trades.

That's not unions; it's value, supply and demand.

BAH! The lifestyle demands of unskilled laborers should not be constrained by such paltry considerations.

It is a "special calling" like being a Priest and shit.

A burger flipper is not worth more then $7.25.

And this study I doubt took into account the franchises.

But put that all to the side.....

At $15 an hour teenagers working will be extinct. No one is going to hire them. Teenagers already have problems finding jobs.

In the old days, minimum wage earners had purchasing power that was much closer to 15/hr in 2013 than 7.5/hr is.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Mac_Index

I usually use cigarette prices, but the idea is the same.

In 1983 (my first pay cheque job), a pack of 25 cigarettes cost me about 1.50 and minimum wage was 3.50/hr.

in 2013, min wage is 10.50/hr, but that same pack of smokes now costs $11.

Folks claim that raising minimum wages would take away from those who are making more, I maintain that it would be taking something back. Namely, the ability to participate in the economy without needing some sort of subsidy.

You don't want to spend an extra 15% at McD's that would keep employed people off of income maintenance programs, yet will continue to subsidize the ever growing wealth of companies that rely on their employees beign poor enough as to be eligible for social assistance.

Why do you undermine the actual market value of their labour only to pay not just for welfare, but a welfare delivery system?

Minimum wage was never designed to be lived on!!!!!

If you're a minimum wage worker and you're relying on it to live you've fucked up in life!!!

And I'm not talking about those laid off and looking for a job. I'm talking about those who never rise above minimum wage type jobs.

And if everyone's wage goes up the welfare state isn't going away. It's just that $15 an hour will be the new poor!

And Cigarettes is not a good example since most of the cost of them comes from taxes. Plus you shouldn't be smoking them if you can't afford them.

Minimum wage was also not designed to be the standard of living.

If wages go up proportionately, you'd be correct. At issue though, is that the "trickle down" has been drying up and the fountain head is no longer flowing. IOW, the disparity between richest and much of the work force is to great. That share of wealth has already been "stolen" once through the devaluing of labour across the board (i.e.:reduced purchasing power for the same or more work)

Cigs are a simpler and more trackable example than say, real estate or crude oil. We could have used a food product if you wanted. I use them because the current cost vs historical cost ha convenient numbers. Also, the tax percentage/actual cost has remained relatively constant over the years.

Cigs are a luxury item, hardly a necessity, and price changes are different on luxury items.

Also, cigs are very heavily sin-taxed, much moreso today than yesterday. [leave aside price-inelasticity for the moment]

Bad choice for your benchmark. Maybe something like bread, gasoline, or cinema ticket.

It's a distortion that causes imbalances that will always cause more pain later, sometimes in unexpected areas: thanks to the Millionaire tax, and the wage control of WWII, we (the US) today have out-of-control top executive compensation, and health cover mainly through jobs.

Yesterday's price controls make for today's problem.

You ever raise the allowance of one of your kids, and see what the siblings say if they don't get a raise too?

Perception of wealth, and even buying power to some degree, are relative, and basically all incomes and prices will eventually go up (leading to no better position of the min wage earner).


Oh, and gul, why is 50 years ago the magic num as a reference point? Why not 100 yrs, or 25 or 75, or today, etc.?

True. Anybody still on-board with sin taxes? You know, A tax levied on something that is considered morally or medically harmful, such as alcohol or tobacco

Or a deck of cards.

Couldn't agree more, yeah it's always cheaper to do it yourself but only if you know what you're doing or if it's an easy fix.

Personally I find plumbing a simple affair, basic physics, and being able to turn off the water supply makes it risk free. Same goes for handling electricity.

But you're right, you gotta know when to cut your losses and call in a professional.

You know the best part? These assholes are trying to get more than "teenager with his or first job" wages... by acting like spoiled teenagers.

http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/a_big_mac_miss_by_the_huffingt.php

If it's not designed to be lived on, then it can't be that important.

Because I believe the human condition should improve, not decline. I'll use a high point as a benchmark, thank you very much, because improvement is the constant goal. It frustrates me that the high point wasn't yesterday.

Ah, claims to the Golden Era of yesteryear.

'cept it wasn't really. Air raid drills. Domino theory. Both funded by military–industrial–congressional complex that ruled the world with a few banks, leading to boon to prosperity. US auto exports that led the planet. Housecalls by doctors but only asprin or penicillin in the bag - no lipitor or any miracle drugs. Mind, we consider the US the only country on the planet for this analysis/comparison, right? If I sat here a few minutes I might think of flaws in your claim of how great things were the year I was born, but, never mind, think I have a scab I'd rather pick at.

You attribute things to me neither said nor believed. We're talking about wages. They should be better today than they were then. And this would also apply to the various bogeyman you listed. We should do better today than we did then in all regards. My position is the very opposite of a golden age theory.

"Wages" in a vacuum are meaningless data.

You could have a million in gold on desert isle, your full pockets a help calling the coconuts down.

Leave things the fuck alone for the most part. Try and fix them and, well, you can see the results today of past 'fixes.' Plus we all end up paying for the insult. Our health care system, e.g.

And your point would be... what? It's a simple notion -- the human condition can and should improve over time. We can discuss this regarding just wages or running the complete gammut of human activity. I see no reason we should accept the idea that 50 years ago was good enough, or even worse, that we shouldn't expect that good again.

Actually, things are much much much better in incomparable ways.

E.g. pesky fact that people live much longer (you don't think that's related to your perception of drop in relative wage for x subgroup of folks?).


Besides, total happiness units on the planet (and even in the US) is at an all time high, I even read a report about it.

Or you could read neonmosfet's reply.

Absolutely, no disagreement that we as a society are better off than we were in the 50s. But there are nevertheless deficiencies, places where we can do better, things we still need to fix. Progress is a wonderful thing, I reject the notion that we've come so far that we have nowhere else to go.

You trust well-intentioned ancs to be your daddy, dude?

Cause I sure fuckin don't. [suicide or patricide never sounded sweeter words, imo]

There's a picture of him holding a baby in another thread. I sure ass hell don't trust that as a father!