Posted on 10/11/2015 6:09:16 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Minimum-wage jobs are meant to be the first rung on a career ladder, a chance for entry-level workers to prove themselves before earning a promotion or moving on to other, better-paying jobs. But a growing number of Americans are getting stuck on that first rung for years, if they ever move up at all.
Anthony Kemp is one of them. In 2006, he took a job as a cook at a Kentucky Fried Chicken in Oak Park, Illinois. The job paid the state minimum wage, $6.50 an hour at the time, but Kemp figured he could work his way up.
“Normally, a good cook would make $14, $15, $17 an hour,” Kemp said. “I thought that of course I’d make a better wage.”
He never did; nine years later, the only raises Kemp, 44, has seen have been the ones required by state law. He earns $8.25, the state’s current minimum wage.
Stories like Kemp’s are becoming more common. During the strong labor market of the mid-1990s, only 1 in 5 minimum-wage workers was still earning minimum wage a year later...
(Excerpt) Read more at fivethirtyeight.com ...
Is he still a cook at KFC? Did he work on sharpening his skills or just expect to do what’s needed to cook fried chicken and expect money to come to him?
And the higher the minimum wage goes, the harder it will become. One CEO in the Pacific Northwest raised everyone’s salary to $35 / hr ($70k/year) and a lot of those people are never going to see a raise in their lifetimes ... assuming the company is able to remain in business.
They don’t realize that ALL employees are expenses that generate direct or indirect revenue greater than their costs. If they start costing more, you’re fired. In the free market, you get paid what you are worth.
The day will come when these menial laborers will be replaced by automation. Can’t wait to hear their excuses then.
From the article: “The trend partly reflects the slow recovery...”
Does anybody aside from the media believe we are in a “recovery”?
I did stick it out and graduated from high school. Six days later I was a United States Marine recruit. After the Marines, I joined the Guard and I used my GI Bill to get my degree in Accounting. And both of my parents were immigrants, so I had zero help from them. If you want to get somewhere in life, you have work for it. Working at a KFC is probably not going to get you too far, although some people do make it to the managerial level. I suspect Mr Kemp has nothing saved up for retirement and will probably have to work until he dies, because the pittance he's going to get from Social Security isn't going to be enough to live on. There's a part of me that wants to feel sorry him and others like him, but this is the land of opportunity and you have to be willing to put forth in order to succeed.
There is a reason why Oak Park’s population has been in decline since the 70’s, Anthony...
[Does anybody aside from the media believe we are in a “recovery”?]
No one in reality. OTOH, a lot of people have seen paper gains in the stock market, but many won’t get out. Got a friend, didn’t bail at 18,000+, nor at 16k and change. It his over 17k a couple days ago and I doubt he got out.
If one were fortunate enough to have made some cash, I’d take it and run. But that’s just me.
Yeah, KFC cook isn’t exactly a top-rated chef job. I cooked a lot of chicken when I was 16, but not at KFC.
“No one need be ashamed of poverty, the real shame is in not taking measures to escape it.”
Pericles
Yes, a good chef should be making those wages. Probably way more after 9 years.
But when you start your "career" at KFC at age 35, you have to ask yourself after 9 years, just what the hell went wrong in my life?
Did you go to culinary school?
Get some education in another field that pays more than fast food wages?
Did you TRY to make manager?
Hell, ASSISTANT manager?
Did you learn everything about the other jobs at the KFC, so that you were invaluable?
Or did you go to work and did the bare minimum?
A real "go-getter" WOULD have gotten raises.
Plus, under Glorious Leader, there is no recession and high-paying jobs are everywhere.
The news told me so.
I’ve stopped eating at fast food places because of price increases. I’ll eat at a Panera’s with friends but I don’t sit at a fast food place anymore because I can buy the ingredients at a reasonable price and make the sandwich cheaper at home.
Same here. 16 I was working during the summers because my dad refused to give me date money for my GF. I was on the HS football team but the best motivation for me to succeed in life was when I was working the night shift at Subway and the hottest girl in school came in and saw me with pitiful eyes.
That sucked. Vowed never to end up in fastfood/minimum wage ever again.
That would be the CEO of Gravity Payments.
It's already not working out to well for him. His best employees are quitting and he's having to hire more expensive talent from the outside.
What he didn't factor on was the resentment his superstar employees would feel. Imagine how you would feel if you worked hard for a small company and earned your way to the $70K a year level and then your boss suddenly decides to bring everybody to the same level as you. Even those who are mediocre and that you have to often pick up the slack for. That would make you feel like a sucker.
This guy. He chose to do nothing to better himself. This is all on him.
Do you understand what Obama and his confederates have done to the economy for the bottom half the of the country, talent wise ?
I know enough about the fast food industry to know that if you show up every day with a positive attitude and you do your job well and with enthusiasm, you will become at minimum a shift supervisor within six months to a year. The industry is starved for talent. They can hire 16 year olds to toss chicken parts into a fryer. What they need are reliable people who are willing to take some responsibility and show some initiative.
For years fast food was cheap (and fast); now it is neither. I’m not surprised that McDonald’s is having problems, or that they are looking at all-day breakfast availability (I believe they do well with breakfast, but I believe the items are cheaper than the regular food).
I think between whites becoming more educated in terms of diet, and waves of foreigners that don’t eat McDonald’s, those chains are in trouble; they’ve “Mexicanized” their menus, but not sufficiently to draw them away from their own food (my town has a lot of small shops that sell Latino fast food from various countries - and they undersell the big chains).
I noted during the short fast-food workers strike a couple of months ago that it fizzled when the primarily black & Hispanic workers noticed that the customers hurt by the strike were primarily black & Hispanic.
Many who haven’t had to be in the current one, do not.
Yes, that used to be the way things worked. Keep working hard, keep learning and it’s pretty much guaranteed.
Based on the article, I’d say a lot of the folks described in the article believe O’s nonsense. There is a pic of them wanting the $15 - not realizing it doesn’t come out of thin air like Yellen and co. can make happen. For awhile.
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