Posted on 09/05/2014 6:49:59 AM PDT by lifeofgrace
Three things fast food workers should do with the “extra” money you’ll get if the national minimum wage is raised from $7.25 to $15 per hour.
For argument sake, let’s call the average minimum wage $7.85 to account for California, New York, Arizona, Colorado, Montana, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Nevada, Ohio, Illinois and Florida, all of whom have something in the neighborhood of $8 (give or take). Socialist enclaves of Oregon, Washington, Vermont, and Connecticut are in the $9 range, with Washington the winner at $9.32.
Let’s also set the number of hours per week at 30 for the average burger-flipper or fry jockey, and at 50 weeks per year if they are not just summer labor. So that’s $10,725 more in your pocket for saying “would you like fries with that?”
Before we look at the three things you should do with the money, let’s look at what you shouldn’t do.
1. Buy 10,725 Powerball tickets. The odds of getting $10,000 back are 1 in 648,975.96. The odds of winning the (currently $110 million or $67.9 million cash value) jackpot are 1 in 175,223,510. If you figure your only job for the next 20 years will be minimum wage, I suppose the price of dreams can be yours if you keep your job. (Mega-millions is a worse bet, to even get $5,000 the odds are 1 in 739,688). Then again, you can invest $11.29 in a copy of Statistics for Dummies to help you calculate your odds.
2. Buy cigarettes. In most states, you can support a 4-pack-a-day habit with your newfound pocket money. In New York it will only support 2 packs. If you smoke a pack a day, you can have enough money to fly to Las Vegas, where cigarettes are $6.04/pack. Contrary to classic Sinatra and Elvis flicks, they don’t give away cigarettes anymore. But then again, if you gamble the $8,000 or so you might have in your pocket when you get to Vegas after paying to get there, they might comp you a few packs. If you want to go, see the point above on the book you’ll need.
3. Drink alcoholic beverages. Visit these maps to help plan your purchases to get the most value. The average price of a beer in North America is $4.74. That will get you a couple of cases per week to fund your weekend house party for your fellow minimum-wagers. But make sure to sober up before your next shift, because unemployment awaits those who lose a prized job in the food service industry.
In short, avoid vices and bad investments like gambling. Your money will quickly change hands from you to the minimum-wage worker manning the quickie store counter, and will re-enter the economy, but, alas, you will no longer have it.
Now here’s where you should put that money.
1. Invest in Momentum Machines. They make the robots that will replace you on the grill line, the register counter, and the dining room. Pretty cool stuff. Their team has people who were trained at Berkeley, Stanford, UCSB, and USC—studying Physics, Mechanical Engineering, and Control Systems. If you can’t join ‘em, then invest in ‘em. You’ll likely double your money multiple times and be able to retire when the robot replaces you.
2. Attend college. Work 5 years, and then go to UCLA to get that degree so you can apply at Momentum for the Mechatronic Engineer position. The in-state resident cost at UCLA, all-inclusive, is $24,697 if you live off-campus. You’ll qualify for student loans to cover the difference. With a great job, you can pay back those loans in the next 10 years (or take the rest of your life, what does it matter?) and live well. Can’t get in to a college? Spend your non-working hours while you save your college money taking FREE online classes. On Youtube, you can take free classes from Harvard, Stanford, Duke, and a host of other colleges. These are real classes, and you get the benefit of a gold-plated education to help you get in to the school of your choice.
3. Start a business. Ten grand is enough to start all kinds of businesses. Every business starts with an idea. Look at Uber. They started with the idea for ride sharing, sitting in Paris, sipping wine (a grand will get you to Paris and back, airbnb.com will get you a nice bed, cheap—the wine is on you), and then came up with a smartphone app to support the idea. Sitting around doing repetitive, minimum-wage work is mind-numbing. Use that time to come up with lots of ideas, and drop $21.99 on books like iPhone Application Development for Dummies then go home, write a bunch of apps, and see if one of them makes money. No, it doesn’t have to be a grand-slam instant viral winner. The best ideas take a few years to marinate, so do a bunch, and incubate the best ones. Ten grand will pay for a lot of inspiration.
Whatever you decide to do, you better do it soon, because companies like Momentum, and people who decide to get educated, along with everyone else competing for the next killer app, will likely kill your minimum wage job before too long. At $15 per hour, it’s just too expensive to keep you. You know, profits and all. People don’t like paying $8.46 for a Whopper meal. I suppose they don’t mind so much in Paris, where BK is all the rage. Then again, maybe a one-way ticket and a job hawking Whoppers in Paris isn’t such a bad alternative when the pink slip comes your way.
You are looking at the end of the fast food requirement for massive numbers of low-quality employees. Ten years at best left....and the bulk (say sixty percent of the “force”) will be let go as automation and robots arrive.
There will be over half-a-million folks let go over a five-year period, and no one left to hire them. If these people don’t see the door opening shortly....they have to be blind.
I imagine their union dues will eat up most of their minimum wage increase.
Another thing about what not to invest your money in: cable TV or video games. It takes about 10 days of your life to get to that maximum prestige in Call of Duty, or about 15 to reach level 90 in WoW. Cable TV is a hotbed of liberalism and losers.
Also, if you go to college, do NOT get a liberal arts degree. Major in business, engineering, or pre-med. Don’t subject yourself to Communist professors in the social “sciences”, and then find yourself with a crap salary. You don’t want to hang out with the losers who keep wanting their college loans to be eliminated (these people, incidentally, are a major reason why liberalism is so popular among young idiots).
Realistically, though, the only industries who would benefit from the minimum wage increase are the video game, drug, and fatty food industries. Poor people have only themselves to blame.
The seniors on Social Security will no longer even be able to afford a McDouble, fries, and a free-refill drink, which is now often all they can afford for a meal out.
Yep....maybe 4 dollars will be taken by the union.
The funny thing is that the people who run the SEIU never worked a real job in their lives and they get paid like kings. The sheep don’t want to see that.
the author missed one - get a 2 year degree in tech support, then provide troubleshooting and repair of the robots that replace you.
Let’s see.
They get a massive increase in their annual wages. This is immediately counter balance by an increase in ALL of their taxes. You realize that each line entry in the deductions part of the pay stub will go up.
Then let’s add unions dues, if they are foolish enough to unionize.
Finally lets factor in that the prices for EVERYTHING will go up.
Bottom line: Their new “living wages” will be just about as “liveable’ as their current “living wage.”
And the final nail; businesses that have depended on a large, some what rotational, pool of unskilled labor will either go out of business or mechanize as much of their process as possible so their owners and feed and clothe their families as prices go up.
What people need to realize is that minimum wage type jobs pay what they do, because their skills and labor are not worth more to a business.
People also need to realize that you are not stuck at minimum wage for your entire working lifetime. People need to take initiative to learn about in the job market and the economy. They need to learn about the skills and education needs to qualify for better paying jobs. And then go out and get the education And training needed for better paying work.
There will always be jobs at the bottom, and these jobs won’t pay very well, because it isn’t worth much to a business to employ people with no particular skills at a higher rate of pay.
Its always going to be up to people to strive for something better, and then go get education and training to move beyond minimum wage / hired help types of jobs.
Correct. My son’s first summer as a McDonald’s employee is what convinced him to really work at getting good grades, and a college degree - he did NOT want to work under the golden arches his entire life. I also started in restaurant work - my parents owned it, so I got less than minimum wage. It was always clear to me that it would be much easier to get an education and get OUT of restaurant work.
On the up side, since fast food companies make poor inner city people fat (at least that is what I am told), less of them will be able to afford that unhealthy fare.
It’s not unhealthy for those who are hungry.
Good article.
I love it.
I don’t think Momentum Machines is public though.
Put the minimum at 15 and you will see mass unemployment and those that get it will never leave. Liberal utopia for the unwashed peasants.
Idiots.
I’m afraid you don’t understand economics, The people on a fixed income do, pal. When it’s your turn, you will.
I will get my EBT card and spend more than the 50bucks a week I currently spend on food.
That will be nice if you qualify for it. When the Senior Center is open, one can get lunch for $2.25. Today that was a serving spoon each of carrots, about 1/4 lb of pot roast, about 1/2 of a small banana, and one half-pint of 1% milk. Tonite I'm making a microwave roasted potato and a dish of broccoli. That and a pint of milk made of powder is probably less than $6 for today. I can't qualify for any EBT card. Join the crowd.
When minimum wage goes to $15, all prices will rise proportionately, and your food will be $100 a week, not $50. Hope you have a minimum-wage job.
Why don’t you qualify?
My taxes pay for that.
BTW, I am not in support of a damn thing the FedGov mandates.
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