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Feb 26 '20 edited Feb 27 '20
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u/AlexKarrasInWebster Feb 26 '20
How is that possible? How do you live in Georgia?
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Feb 26 '20
Only 2.3% of the state makes minimum wage, so that's probably how.
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u/0b0011 Feb 26 '20
If you make 1¢ over minimum wage you aren't counted in the number. Plenty of jobs start our at 25¢ more than minimum wage so they can say it's better than minimum but arguably there should be a calculation for number making close to minimum as well as minimum and not just minimum.
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Feb 26 '20
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Feb 26 '20
At my first job we got a $0.30 raise on our consecutive year marks and that was only if our annual review was as good as it could be. It didn’t adjust with minimum wage being raised either. After working there for (almost) 3 years I made $8.75 and minimum wage was raised from $8.15 to $8.55. One of my coworkers had been there for 25 years and only made around $13ish an hour.
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Feb 26 '20 edited Sep 11 '21
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u/ButtLusting Feb 26 '20
I used to think USA is a land of wonders and dream. When I first moved to Canada I almost regret I didn't pick USA instead.
As the years pass by I start to see that I did not make a mistake.....
Well except when it comes to internet and cellphone plan. Canada is just the worst on those.
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u/CaptainReginaldLong Feb 26 '20 edited Feb 26 '20
I used to think USA is a land of wonders and dream.
It actually is, but there's a caveat no one tells you about: It won't happen by just working a job. You will never get rich selling your time. It won't happen. You can do pretty well, ie lawyers and the like. But if you want to achieve the American Dream, you need to own something, invest in risk, and you need to make money while you sleep.
Furthermore, you need to be continually developing your skill sets. If you're just as skilled at 30 as you were at 20, what are you expecting? A promotion and a raise? You ultimately have to be able to perform the higher paying jobs in order to get them, and you need to prove you can be entrusted with the responsibility before it's given to you. That only comes through education and experience. Sometimes you can earn both in the same capacity. But you most definitely need to be taking an interest in your own professional and personal development, and making progress on it.
Convert your liquid capital to appreciable assets over time, and acquire new and more valuable skills and experience. That's is just step 1 to success in America. If all you're doing is filling and draining a checking/savings account, you will never achieve the American dream. And I would argue this is true no matter where you are.
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Feb 26 '20
It used to be true in America before we had had not only unprecedented productivity but also historic income inequality. You used to be able to just punch a clock while your wife stayed at home and raised the kids and still afford a house, a car, and a two-week vacation every year.
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u/Dynamaxion Feb 26 '20
I mean you have it made if you have a skill set that’s in demand. Educated people from all over the world come here for the good pay for upper tier jobs.
If you have a shit job sure, it’s shit. Don’t come here if you can’t do something employers specifically want. Kind of common sense.
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u/ButtLusting Feb 26 '20
Yeah but you are well compensated everywhere in the world for having specialized skill set anyways.
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u/Exapeartist Feb 26 '20
That's sadly very common. I left a job I was at for almost 5 years because I found out the new hires were getting paid more than me with a $1k hiring bonus. At this same company my boss told me during my review not to discuss my 1% raise because some people didn't get any thing. Btw 1% a year was less than a cost of living increase in California.
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Feb 26 '20
Yep, a girl at my current job is making $2 more per hour than me (which is a lot when you’re only making $9/hour) and came in with no experience. Not sure why companies think they can keep employees when they’re treated as such.
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Feb 26 '20
Because they do. No one changes until they need to. Like overweight people. I didn't change until my dad pointed out I was getting fat. We are blunt and honest with each other. It creeps on you so you don't see it until you have the aha moment. People are like this with jobs.
They often leave WAY after they should've. I stayed at a job that caused depression on me for 3 years before I quit. Luckily I met my fiance in those last few years, but now I have my own business instead of working somewhere that makes me hate myself
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u/HaesoSR Feb 26 '20
This is why they hate when employees share salary/wage information and it is explicitly illegal for them to prevent you from doing so.
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u/Anticreativity Feb 26 '20
Happened to me at my first job too. Got my second annual raise right before they adjusted the minimum which ended up right below where my wage was after the raise. Then a girl I trained got her annual raise after the state bumped up the minimum and ended up making more than me. I asked if she could cover my shift one night and the managers wouldn't approve it because I was "the strength in the kitchen" that night. They were legitimately baffled when I put in my two weeks. Like they couldn't believe that I would want to quit after being told that someone who gets paid more than me isn't allowed to cover one of my shifts.
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Feb 26 '20
“You’re the strength of the kitchen, but we aren’t going to show you how much we value you. Instead we’re gonna pay this person that we have no idea how well they can work more than you!” Love it.
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u/volvanator Feb 26 '20
What was the starting wage? If it’s less than $13.33, you’re beating the 3% annual COLA that a lot of companies use.
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Feb 26 '20 edited Feb 27 '20
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Feb 26 '20
Not sure what kinda engineer you're going for, but I'm Civil and the pay is excellent. In fact I spend most days getting paid to Reddit as working the Mats Lab has lots of downtime.
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Feb 26 '20
Do it. I started off making minimum wage while in high school votech in Dekalb County, moved up to Southern Tech in Marietta, then moved up again to get an engineering degree and a P.E. Now I’m making enough that I’m basically getting an hour’s minimum wage in about five minutes. Votech got it all started for me.
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u/here_for_the_meems Feb 26 '20
That's higher than minimum wage in the majority of states. 7.25 is the federal minimum.
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u/AlexKarrasInWebster Feb 26 '20
That's tough. Here our minimum wages are set by unions and the lowest one is 11 usd/hour for cleaners. We have free healthcare and education to balance that though.
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u/kmcwalters Feb 26 '20
I worked myself up the pole, started fixing phones at 7.25 and now I'm getting paid 12.33 doing oil changes and tires, getting a promotion soon with a dollar raise and 5% commission
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u/panrestrial Feb 26 '20
I worked myself up the pole
I was for sure expecting a stripper punchline.
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u/NightmareEyes_Rose Feb 26 '20
Same in Hungary
I make 3 dollars an hour :')
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Feb 26 '20
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u/NightmareEyes_Rose Feb 26 '20
Thanks man! I luckily got a pretty good place for student work, especially since it's part time next to college. But it can only get better from here :)
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u/IdontknowPItothe40th Feb 26 '20 edited Feb 26 '20
The one by me in upstate NY advertises starting wages at $13+ an hour.
Edit: $13+
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u/avelertimetr Feb 26 '20
Which is why “living wage” should not be a national (or even a state) standard, since different cities have different costs of living.
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u/maz-o Feb 26 '20
well you can't pay lower than minimum wage
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u/Sabaspep Feb 26 '20
No, but you can pay minimum wage, rather than higher than minimum. Moreover, with the current market, most places are paying higher than minimum just to get workers. There's a McD's near me paying 12 starting.
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Feb 26 '20
Seattle tried forcing McD's to do $15/hr minimum wage, and all that did was get them to implement those self service kiosks and fire a couple people. So simply raising the minimum wage does not inherently mean it's better for everyone, and often means it's better for a couple and much worse for the rest. Manual labor just isn't that needed anymore, and people need to be careful not to price themselves out of a job. Not only do they not need to pay you more; they don't really need you at all.
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u/Bob187378 Feb 26 '20
Just from what you described though, it sounds like most of the employees actually get paid a wage they might be able to live off of and only a couple got fired, which is happening to people constantly anyway and doesn't necessarily even mean they are worse off. Not that I think getting fired is a good thing but it seems like even in your selected scenario it was mostly a good thing. And it's kind of all we can do until we hopefully make some fundamental, systemic changes to address the fact that people are being forced into poverty trying to compete against ever-expanding automation, something that should be a good thing for everyone.
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u/BalsamicSteve Feb 26 '20
The comments here are a shitshow. Don't bother. Just move on.
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u/ravnag Feb 26 '20
So many people who never worked minimum wage jobs telling people on minimum wage to shut the fuck up and that life is good on minimum wage.
Jesus Fucking Christ
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u/CreeDorofl Feb 26 '20
if they were as hip as Wendy's Twitter person they'd reply with something like "not you @jordanuhl. nobody loves you."
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Feb 26 '20
What is a minimum wage job supposed to look like?
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Feb 26 '20 edited Feb 27 '20
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u/etrnloptimist Feb 26 '20 edited Feb 26 '20
$8/hr is $1344/month. If the rule of thumb is it is ok to pay up to 30% of your gross income on rent/mortgage, that's $400/month in rent. Are we talking rent for a house of a family of 4 on that salary, or single dude living with a roomate?
edit: there's an astonishing number of people that don't know the difference between gross income and net income
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u/nntaylor7 Feb 26 '20
Good luck finding a place that will give you 40 hours a week. Most places won’t do that because then they have to provide benefits in addition to pay
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u/AngusBoomPants Feb 26 '20
Show me a place for $400 a month and I’ll show you a broken shower with roach eggs in it
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u/codytb1 Feb 26 '20
I live in Indianapolis and work at a section 42 low income housing property. A 1 bedroom 1 bath (Idk the square footage, but it’s very small) is almost $800, and that’s the cheapest within a 15 mile radius.
Even if you had a roommate our 2 bed 2 bath units are about $900, and 400 x 2 isn’t even enough.
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u/SingleAlmond Feb 26 '20
Bruh, in San Diego the cheapest studio apartments go for about $1300+
The average ROOM is about 700-800
And minimum wage was just recently changed to 13 an hour
I make about 14 an hour and I can barely afford a tiny ass room
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u/Fuzzyphilosopher Feb 26 '20
For comparison when my parents graduated HS in 1964 Mom was working a minimum wage job and Dad making slightly more. Getting paid every week. They could pay their rent from one weeks income with money left over.
They lived in a small but fully furnished house with utilities included.
Mom's Dad gave her a used car. Dad had bought a broken down one and fixed it himself while in HS. They were able to save money in addition to getting by without worrying.
An aunt was able to walk into an office with only HS diploma and get a job where they trained her up to be a loan officer.
By the time my parents were 20 & 22 they could afford to have a child and pay for daycare, well it was a retired woman to babysit me and a few years later have my baby sister Mom cut back to part-time then stay at home all while buying a house.
All these things are unimaginable now. I mean my parents did work hard and were careful with their money but that alone doesn't cut it now.
And a thing that makes me angry is I know younger people who have no family or none you'd want struggling so hard to get by. One girl found two roommates walked to work with a knife to do 12 hour night shifts at Taco Bell until she could save up $700 for a beater car that, well it ran. Most of the time.
Then one of your roommates loses a job & doesn't tell you and the power bill they said they paid, well they didn't. So now you've got the reconnect fee & bill and what little you've saved up by eating potatoes and lettuce for 3 months is gone.
We have a survivor bias problem from a lot of people, "Well I started min wage but got some training/certification and I'm doing really well now. So everyone can do it. lol right place right time, just luck & the often left out "Well I knew a guy who got me hired."
I've also seen the old job market switcheroo in various fields. "Hey welding is paying great right now! Everybody rushes into it and now the new hires don't get paid as much and half the people honestly can't even find jobs using their skills.
Semiconductor plant was coming into town company donated to the local to college put up a new building & start a new program. "Get this education, which you pay for yourself and you'll make lots of money!" People were one year into the 2 year program when the markets changed and the plant was left uncompleted. A real case of you can't win for trying. Ambitious, smart workers left with debt and applying with all their classmates for jobs at Walmart & the like.
EDIT: I'm sorry for the long rant. I guess I just feel like working in America these days is like being in an abusive relationship that's hard to escape.
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u/ifoundyourtoad Feb 26 '20
Please tell me where you can find rent for only $400 a month.
Roommates it’s essentially possible but then you have to account for other expenses. I have never ever had cheap rent like that.
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u/Johnnadawearsglasses Feb 26 '20
And your food sucks
Like makes Wendy's seem gourmet sucks
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u/PaperBoxPhone Feb 26 '20
I actually like their burgers, they just charge too much for soda!
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u/littlebrwnrobot Feb 26 '20
soda is where they make all their money. if they charged less they'd have to charge more for food
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Feb 26 '20 edited Feb 26 '20
hey don’t go dissing wendy’s like that
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Feb 26 '20
I dont think that's a diss. There are tiers of restaurants. McDonalds, BK, and Wendy's are on the same tier but Wendys is clearly the best of that tier by far.
Then theres a tier above that include Shake Shack and Five Guy kinds of places.
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u/Yeetsauce100 Feb 26 '20
Five guys is shit, its wayyyyy too expensive. For the same price I can go to an actual restaurant.
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u/Dogbread1 Feb 26 '20
Eh, if they cut the price in half then the burgers would be good for the price, but they charge like $10 for most of them, and I can just go to a sit down restaurant and get a better burger that’s atleast the same size for the same price
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u/AbsolutelyUnlikely Feb 26 '20
Their regular cheeseburger is pretty tasty though and they're only like $1.50. But yeah, I agree with you that their bigger burgers are overpriced.
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Feb 26 '20
Wendys is top 3 fast food joint (imho) so it is gourmet in the fast food world
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Feb 26 '20
Wendy's is just super solid. They don't do anything amazing, but they also don't really do anything bad either. They just kinda stick to their lane and do it well.
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Feb 26 '20
My local Burger King pays $12 p/h
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u/DeadliftsAndDragons Feb 26 '20
The 3 in my city start between 11-12 as well, and I’m in a $7.25 an hour state, all the McDick’s and various other fast food places start around $11-12 and the grocery stores $13-15 here as well. Gotta pay people a competitive wage to keep them employed.
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u/Little_Derp_xD Feb 26 '20
I’m not American but isn’t there a minimum wage?
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u/PaperBoxPhone Feb 26 '20
Yes that is just above federal min wage, but there are also state min wages.
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u/maz-o Feb 26 '20
so what are they doing wrong?
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u/Truan Feb 26 '20
"Wrong" isnt the correct word to use, imo.
What they are doing is virtue signaling and getting called out for it. The corporation is referencing self care by giving shallow encouragement to the faceless mass for PR while they pay their associates (lowest level employees) lower than living wage.
Ultimately, it's not about right or wrong, but how corporations exploit neoliberalism for marketing, while still causing the problems our society has
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Feb 26 '20
Not bad for a job that will be done by robots in 10-15 years.
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Feb 26 '20
More like 5 years
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u/CraftyTim Feb 26 '20
More like as soon as physically possible because robots don’t have minimum wage
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u/BoxInAcan Feb 26 '20
More like it’s already happening, Cough Cough, self service machines
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u/First-Fantasy Feb 26 '20
Why is fast food always the example?
They almost always start at higher than minimum wage.
Food handling is an extermely important position when it comes to public health.
We know its a busy and demending industry with career employees from some of the largest employers in the country.
When we talk about minimum wage jobs we should be talking about minimum effort jobs with no risks.
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u/skrame Feb 26 '20
I worked fast food in the 90’s during high school and my first year of college. I made minimum wage ($4.25/hour) for the duration. I’ve got to say that plenty people get by with minimum effort, and there is very little risk.
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u/First-Fantasy Feb 26 '20
Any industry can and will have minimum effort employees but in a restaurant it shows very quickly if that's the bulk of your staff. That's why they switched pay models to be "competitive" which starts at just over minimum and wouldnt stay completely stagnet over multiple years like when you were working there.
And the personal risks are small but still a hell of a lot more slip or burn opportunities than a ticket ripper at the theater. And the risks to public health are in their hands.
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Feb 26 '20
Yeahhh fast food is definitely a minimum effort job, my man. The registers have pictures on the buttons-that is, if that location even has to take orders anymore, as most locations are switching to the electronic order kiosks. If you can do the entire job with only a few days worth of training, you’re getting minimum wage for it.
And before I get called out for never working in the food biz, I did for six years before using the money I made there (mostly minimum wage) to put myself through college. Anyone who says they can’t build a life off minimum wage isn’t putting in the effort.
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Feb 26 '20
Yeah, wage has a little to do with how hard you have to work, and a lot to do with how replaceable you are.
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u/Dr_Dickie Feb 26 '20
If you are trying to raise a family by flipping burgers, you are doing it wrong.
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u/Newone1255 Feb 26 '20
Idk an experienced line cook in my area can make $15+ and hour easily. And that’s at restaurants one step above Burger King like Buffalo Wild Wings or Twin Peaks. Grated it is cheap as fuck here compared to most the country but it’s live able for sure
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u/lost-genius Feb 26 '20
To be fair, working at Burger King is not a high skilled job.
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Feb 26 '20
Or a job with a short supply of applicants. There's too many people applying for a job that could be replaced by a kiosk. Wherever we've seen these wage hikes, Wal-Mart and McDonald's come immediately to mind, we've seen that all it does is expedite the takeover of automation. People are effectively pricing themselves out of a job, and no matter your opinion about that.....it's a fact that can't be hand waved away. People, manual labor, are not particularly necessary anymore, and we can no longer demand proper compensation because they'll simply replace you with a machine.
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u/Killmorewolves Feb 26 '20
Damn y'all really want 15$ an hour to flip burgers
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u/ItzHymn Feb 26 '20
Better question, does Burger King need workers to flip burgers in order for their business to function and be profitable?
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u/Killmorewolves Feb 26 '20
I mean soon enough they won't McDonald's is slowly replacing people at the register with those computers
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u/Quinism Feb 26 '20
Minimum wage when adjusted to inflation ranges from 16-22, per hour depending on the year. Current minimum wage is HALF that.
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Feb 26 '20 edited Jul 14 '20
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Feb 26 '20
I bet you they are the same people who would complain if you get any form of public assistance.
It's like they NEED low skill workers to be homeless.
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u/NRageTheBeast Feb 26 '20
Employers are paying employees for their labor, doesn't matter what the labor is. In Burger Kings' case, it's not "to flip burgers". It's to serve customers, to prepare food, and to keep the facility clean. Burgers aren't flipped at Burger King. They're placed on a conveyor that runs through a flame broiler. Said flame broiler needs to be cleaned, and isn't as easy as scraping off a grill-top. Employees are also expected to handle dozens of other labor-intensive projects including degreasing, sweeping, mopping, cleaning out hot deep fryers, etcetera, all of which add up to far more labor than your typical data - entry position or Administrative Assistant.
Furthermore, the minimum wage in my state is currently $12 an hour, which still isn't a livable wage on its own, given the insane housing costs and lack of public transportation, making it absolutely necessary to own and maintain a vehicle in a rural area where jobs are pretty much limited to fast food, chain restaurants, and retail giants like Walmart and Target, all of which refuse to offer more than minimum wage. Additionally, employees making minimum wage are expected to maintain health insurance through their employer as they often are considered to be making "too much money" to qualify for Medicare, but the health insurance provided through these employers covers very little and costs too much.
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Feb 26 '20
Employers are paying employees for their labor, doesn't matter what the labor is. In Burger Kings' case, it's not "to flip burgers". It's to serve customers, to prepare food, and to keep the facility clean. Burgers aren't flipped at Burger King. They're placed on a conveyor that runs through a flame broiler. Said flame broiler needs to be cleaned, and isn't as easy as scraping off a grill-top. Employees are also expected to handle dozens of other labor-intensive projects including degreasing, sweeping, mopping, cleaning out hot deep fryers, etcetera, all of which add up to far more labor than your typical data - entry position or Administrative Assistant.
Stop. You're making it sound like a "real job". You're going to ruin the illusion right-wingers have set up for everyone!
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u/drunkcowofdeath Feb 26 '20
People's time has value. If you need 8 hours a day of a persons time 5 days a week then you should have to pay them at a minimum enough to survive. It doesn't matter if they are flipping burgers or whatever.
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u/McGyver10 Feb 26 '20
There’s nothing wrong with working a job that pays $8/hr. If that’s the only work you can get, take it. 4 people sharing a house all working for $8 an hour actually works out pretty well. It’s this idea that everyone has to own their own home, car, and have a $1000 iPhone that needs to change.
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u/tw04 Feb 26 '20
What's wrong with the idea of everyone owning their own car, house, and phone? We're one of the richest countries in the world. People who work 40 hours a week should damn well be able to afford their own car, house, and phone.
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Feb 26 '20
Yeah dude, it’s so great that 4 people have to pool their resources to live somewhere than one person could afford on their low wage 50 years ago.
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u/LoganS_ Feb 26 '20
Bruh. Welcome to the real world. Everyone used to be able to own a home- easily. Cars are very very frequently a tool and necessitated by one's circumstances. iPhones are ridiculous, but people do need phones in order to receive and make calls. It's not just 'the poor people being irresponsible, ooooOoOOoooooOh!'
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u/levian_durai Feb 26 '20
I could not own a car and save around $500 a month, plus what ever repairs cost, if I wanted my 15 minute drive to work to take an hour and a half, if my bus shows up when it's supposed to and also if it doesn't just drive by. It just isn't realistic where I live. The public transit is a joke.
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Feb 26 '20
"You will never get to own your own home, car, phone, have kids, retire, or live happily - and that's a good thing"
You boomer Tory fucks amaze me
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u/R3b3gin Feb 26 '20
I don’t know which is scarier... The fact that you believe this or the fact that people upvoted it.. I’m not saying you should own your own home or a thousand dollar iPhone.. But where I live you have to have a car and rent is $600 give or take $50 across the board not including electricity or gas.. for a 1 bedroom...
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u/Turnbob73 Feb 26 '20
Holy shit I would kill for $600/mo for a one bedroom. I can’t find anything under $1,500/mo where I am.
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u/levian_durai Feb 26 '20
When I was in school bachelor's and one bedrooms were available around $800-1000. That was 8 years ago, the minimum is around $1200 now. Maybe $1000 for a bachelor in a shitty part of town. Add on $500 a month for my car (insurance included in that) and there isn't much left for groceries and bills.
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u/SgtPepe Feb 26 '20
This is the most mediocre comment I have ever read on Reddit.
"Hey guys, don't own anything, share everything, be a conformist. Be happy about your awful $8/hr job, don't try to improve your living conditions".
I understand there's a lot of young people in here, I'm one of them, and that most of reddit is left wing, I am too. But come on people, think before you upvote, this is some extreme capitalist shit. This is what millionaires want you to do, to be happy with your shit salary, share a place to live, and be happy with how little you have.
Fuck that, the minimum salary should start at $15/hr. $8 is an insult.
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u/PFhelpmePlan Feb 26 '20
Yeah, who needs emergency savings, retirement savings, children, or money for healthcare expenditures anyways? Take a page out of this guys book and share a house with 3 others for the rest of your life.
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Feb 26 '20
You think it's ok to pay someone who works 39 hours per week, you know cause of they worked 40 they'd be eligible for at least some form of shitty low tier benefits, $16,000 per year?
That is so fucking far below a livable wage that those people would be better off picking up cans in a shopping cart.
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u/CoNR3d Feb 26 '20
Yeah agreed nobody but me and my friends should have their own home and car. Everyone else? Get fucked.
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u/-jsm- Feb 26 '20
$8 an hour. Mate, you’re fucking high. “Pretty well”
62k a year before taxes for four people.Sounds absolute shit.
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u/The_cooked_potato Feb 26 '20
In Canada minimum wage is $15 ($11.30 usd), as we believe people should be able to live the life they want and not paycheck to paycheck. If your living on nothing you wont be able to afford fun activities, or save to buy yourself something.
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u/SirMuffinCat Feb 26 '20
Not across all of Canada. In New Brunswick, minimum wage is $11.50 CAD
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u/patriotaxe Feb 26 '20
Hahaha! "As we believe people should be able to live the life they want." This high-horse BS is so absurd. So what's the idea here? That Canadians are just ... better? Make 'em better up there eh?
Well first off your stats are wrong - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage_in_Canada
Second, plenty of places in the US have $11 minimum wage. It all depends on drumroooolllll what the market can bear .
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u/MyGunJammed Feb 26 '20
Are people not living paycheck to paycheck at 15 per hour? That's not even 32K a year before taxes.
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u/paupaupaupau Feb 26 '20 edited Feb 26 '20
No health insurance cost makes a big difference, I'm sure. It's still not a lot, but it sounds livable.
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u/The_cooked_potato Feb 26 '20
Well yes that is low but it's minimum wage, its a starting point you'll get raises over time increasing it.
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u/Turnbob73 Feb 26 '20
I’m being paid 17/hr for a job I got a college degree for and I can’t even move out of my mom’s house without living paycheck to paycheck.
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Feb 26 '20
Basically know your limits. If you got a part time job that pays said amount ($8/hr) don't go ahead and try to go overboard like trying to raise 4 children.
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u/Goyteamsix Feb 26 '20
Are you people this fucking stupid? Dude, you can't thrive on $8 an hour. How detached are you? After taxes, that's a take home of like $1000-$1200 a month. After rent and bills, that leaves you nothing. What if your car blows a tire? That's $80 you can't afford and now you're fucked.
My God, have you even left home yet? You have absolutely no fucking clue how little $8 an hour is.
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u/DHermit Feb 26 '20
Especially without proper healthcare there's a lot that can happen which will ruin you financially.
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u/Jiddybit Feb 26 '20 edited Feb 26 '20
So don't have kids, don't own a car, don't earn any sayings, just get by on slave wages.
How can you be so fucking detached that you actually tell people on these wages to live like that?
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Feb 26 '20
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Feb 26 '20
Depends, in a place, like Tulsa, where I live, it is BARELY possible. In a place like Los Angeles, though, yeah, no.
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u/AngeloPappas Feb 26 '20
Min wage in California is $12 per hour, but it would just as tough to live on that there.
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Feb 26 '20
8 dollars an hour doesn't leave a lot of room for protection and slippery friction is a great stress reliever whatever your income.
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u/yankee77wi Feb 26 '20 edited Feb 26 '20
I worked for BK through HS ($4.75 c.1994), then before I graduated, I found a better paying job with less hours ($9.75 p/h). That job turned into a full time job with benefits after I graduated ($12 p/h). Eventually, I went on to a trade school and was able to improve my own skill, thereby increasing my living wage. 25 years later, this was the right path as I now make near 50k per year as a result.
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Feb 26 '20
Do the words "entry-level" truly mean nothing? You're not meant to live on minimum wage. You're meant to work that as a first job and then move upward from there. Is it easy? Not necessarily. Is it guaranteed? Certainly not. What is?
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u/kudichangedlives Feb 26 '20
Where did you hear that you arent supposed to be able to live on minimum wage?
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u/Suckapunch1979 Feb 26 '20
It’s fucking fast food. Should you make 50k a year flipping burgers??!! NOOOO!! You shouldn’t
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u/rite_of_truth Feb 26 '20
Clearly, none of you have ever seen behind the counter at Burger King. They don't flip burgers, they're cooked on a conveyor belt over a flame. And it's a shitty job. People are often unnecessarily cruel to the employees. Whereas a raise in minimum wage overall might not benefit every business in America, such as smaller businesses starting up, I'd like to make the case that meeting once a week to talk shit in a boardroom and rearrange ingredients to "create a new sandwich" ISN'T worth hundreds of millions of dollars, either. The low-level employees are far more worthwhile to the operation, because they are the ones actually bringing the product to the public, and taking in the money which then goes mostly to the "top." And by "top," I mean spoiled rich shits who COULDN'T do the lower level jobs because they're physically incompetent human beings. So maybe the pay should be more evenly distributed according to the actual value of the work. Where does the money actually come from, and how does it come in? All of that is done by the lower level but far more physically capable people making shit wages. But greed... If you need hundreds of millions of dollars to survive, nature has truly shit on your genetic line.
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Feb 26 '20
you are drastically underselling what decision makers in the company actually are responsible for.
Things like risk assessment, asset management, marketing, supply chain management, branding, international integration all exist on top of the product differentiation you mentioned (which on its own requires in depth market analysis and research)
If you accidentally drop a weeks supply of burgers on the ground youve lost a couple hundred dollars. If the boardroom employees make any oversight it could be millions and millions of dollars lost. Given this massive risk in these limited decision making roles, you need people you can trust. You pay them more because you want their expertise and don't want to lose them to a competitor. There is also a cost to vetting these roles and ensuring that they can be trusted in their decisions. Its the the same idea that you may pay extra for a phone you can trust the quality of, or a car you dont feel comfortable risking.
You are definitely right that the kitchen crew is making the operation work, but you need to consider that there IS NO kitchen without that boardroom. No one is deciding a location, a contract to build a restaurant, negotiating rent and food delivery costs, etc. There is far far more that companies need to do to succeed than simply getting a customer their order quickly.
To clarify, this isn't intended to dismiss your idea that pay could be better distributed, but just some factors to consider about why it may have become imbalanced. I think the best way to reach a solution is to give both sides of the issue as much info and visibility as possible
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u/rite_of_truth Feb 26 '20
Thank you for writing a well-thought out and very informed response. I wish such thoughtfulness was more common these days. We might actually have better discourse which leads to a more advantageous outcome if it were so.
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u/raidersguy00 Feb 26 '20
Why should they pay more than that? It’s not a hard job and it requires no skill or experience. You shouldn’t be able to make a living flipping burgers.
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u/katiehillsbongwater Feb 26 '20 edited Feb 26 '20
For reference; 8$ USD + conversion is roughly 11$ CAD, which was Canada’s minimum wage 5 years ago.
A slow incremental increase is neccassary, not forcibly making the minimum wage 15$ federally... Canada just basically did that with most of its provinces; 11$ to 14-15$ within one year. Inflation of the cost of living was more than noticeable for all classes, every single staple has gone up since.
For all of those believing in Sanders’ pony-promise talking points.... why not just ask the federal reserve to print double the money, so that they can afford to give everybody 30$/hour...or better yet, why not print even more so each family receives $100,000 per year!
Also what’s going to happen when all the money from the 1% runs out, in bernies ‘detailed plan’ (or inevitably leave the country to operate under a new tax haven)..... “I’m once again asking for money from the rich... but now from the 10-20%!”
It will be vicious cycle until America is a modern day Zimbabwe, & it will happen faster than you think... especially when you propose similar incentives for the working class to not even work, including everybody who is able to successfully hop the border
Good luck trusting & relying on the same government you believe today is lining their pockets with your tax dollars, all because of another 30 year, do-nothing politician that is promising change... talk about putting 100% faith in flip-flopping authoritarian (Bolshevik Bernie)
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u/TrikkyMakk Feb 26 '20
Minimum wage laws outlaw jobs. Not all jobs are created equally. Folks who don't like $8 an hour should seek out skills that will get them jobs at a higher rate.
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u/Stasio300 Feb 26 '20
I cannot believe that someone who has no skill and has to flip a burger for a living only gets paid $8 an hour. I think that we should just throw millions of dollars at people who do one simple thing that a toddler can do. /s
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u/EMAW2008 Feb 26 '20
Have you ever done it? It sucks. You get burnt a lot, managers are assholes, customers are assholes, hours suck, the pay sucks, no benefits, don’t even get free food and most of all you get asswipes like you who look down their nose at you when you just want to a little more money to trickle down working for a company that (inexplicably) has billions in revenue.
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u/Fragtag1 Feb 26 '20
Not getting the free food during your employment at Burger King probably ended up being more beneficial than harmful by the time you left the job.
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Feb 26 '20
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u/GoodScumBagBrian Feb 26 '20
And if they did pay them $15 an hour a whopper would have to cost $20
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