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(MoneyWatch) Employees of fast food restaurants are striking in cities around the country, bolstered by support from labor unions, churches, and other groups, demanding $15 an hour wages and a greater ability to unionize. Many consumers have complained that the expectations are unreasonable, given the type of work and the skills and drive they assume must be lacking in the workers.

Fast-food customers in search of burgers and fries on might run into striking workers instead. Organizers say thousands of fast-food workers are set to stage walkouts in dozens of cities around the country Thursday, part of a push to get chains such as McDonald's, Taco Bell and Wendy's to pay workers higher wages.

Move over, Reverend Al. You're not the only MSNBC host who moonlights as a liberal activist. On today's Morning Joe, Mika Brzezinski announced that she will be not merely be covering a pay protest by fast-food workers in Detroit on August 29th--she'll be an active part of it. Joe Scarborough tried—in vain—to school Mika on Econ 101. But she did the equivalent of covering her ears and nattering "nah, nah, nah: can't hear you!" Scarborough said he'd be at the protest--on the sidelines, with a bullhorn. View the video here.

I know the restaurant biz very well, I can give you a very good prediction on what would happen if employees at McDonalds must be paid $15 an hour; The first thing that will happen is all the low skilled, non management people will be fired and replaced by line cooks with 3 plus years experience and newly graduated culinary students. If an owner has too pay twice the regular wage, he is only going to hire much more experienced people for obvious reasons. One of the highest costs in the restaurant business is training employees, especially fast food, most...

Dan from Squirrel Hill's Blog In the real world, no liberal has ever bought a McDonald’s franchise and paid the workers $15 an hour Recently, Huffington Post published an article about how easy it would supposedly be for McDonald’s to pay its’ employees $15 an hour. Soon afterward, they took the original article down, and replaced it with this article, which admits that the original article had been wrong.But I knew they were wrong before they admitted it. Having read the original article, one thing I noticed was that it wrongly assumed that the demand for McDonald’s food would not go...

Were we all wrong? Is it possible that Big Guy is not the “One” we’ve been waiting for?Could that title actually belong to a different clown?No, not that clown, this clown:It turns out Ronald McDonald may be the “Bringer of Manna.” That’s right, Mickey D’s McDouble is the “cheapest, most nutritious and bountiful food that has ever existed in human history!” Not to mention Delicious!I know what you’re thinking: “Woo Hoo! Butt where does Lady M stand on the McDouble?”At the head of the line! Butt remember, Lady M strongly adheres to the philosophy “Do as I say, not as...

The Huffington Post reports that McDonald’s could double its workers wages by raising the price of a Big Mac by 68 cents. It went large on the Internet on Tuesday. Unfortunately, what it originally claimed was a study by a University of Kansas researcher turns out to be something—a term paper, maybe?—given to Huffington Post by a KU undergrad. And there are serious problems with it. The correction on its provenance came too late, though: it’s all over the internets: McDonald’s can afford to pay its workers a living wage without sacrificing any of its low menu prices, according to...

FLINT, MI -- A group of protestors operating under the banner of Anonymous -- a multi-faceted, underground activist group known for hacking computers of U.S. government offices and those of foreign countries -- took to downtown Flint Wednesday, July 31, to support a range of social and political issues. Led by Flint resident Adam Gerics, founder and co-director of New Market Fire Station Compassion Center of Greater Flint and a candidate for Flint City Council, protestors stood outside U.S. Rep Dan Kildee's Flint District Office, 801 S. Saginaw St. "A major part of this action is that we want to...

So I guess going to a New York McDonald’s isn’t a good idea right now. Videographer and conservative blogger Adam Sharp of SharpElbows.net attended one such demonstration and interviewed an SEIU member, easily identifiable as such by his purple shirt. When asked whether the union member supported the $15 per hour wage increase the McDonald’s workers were demanding, he admitted, “I’m not sure.” He also said he was there to show his support for the workers rather than the company and expressed a fear that, “if they’re [the McDonald’s employees] pissed off, they could be doing something to that food.”...

Is McDonald’s McDouble cheeseburger (two patties, one slice of cheese, costs about $1) the “cheapest, most nutritious and bountiful food that has ever existed in human history”? It would appear that way, according to arguments explained by New York Post columnist Kyle Smith. “It has 390 calories. It contains 23g, or half a daily serving, of protein, plus 7% of daily fiber, 20% of daily calcium and so on,” Smith writes. “Also, you can get it in 14,000 locations in the US and it usually costs $1,” he adds, referring to the cheeseburger as “one of the unsung wonders of...

Yesterday Townhall.com published a column by yours truly that, by all accounts, was well received by Townhall readers. The topic was the leftist attack on McDonalds over minimum wage issues. You can read that column here. Usually I take a hike for a while after submitting column to Townhall. Too much of my insensitivity can cause emotional problems among proggies, and I am, after all, a compassionate man. Besides, I don’t want to wear out my welcome here. Well, here we are .. the day after .. and I just have to chime in with more on this McDonald’s minimum...

In the recent fury over a proposed budget for low-wage workers circulated by McDonald’s, Forbes contributor Laura Shin asked “Will the McDonald’s Employee Budget help Get the Minimum Wage Raised?” I hope not, but not just for the sake of McDonald’s customers and shareholders. I hope not for the sake of McDonald’s workers and for the sake of low-wage workers everywhere.Who could possibly be so heartless? That’s the wrong question. I agree that we should be soft-hearted, but to borrow from Princeton economist Alan Blinder, our soft hearts have to be combined with hard heads. While Blinder was one of...

(Newser) – Fast-food workers want to make a "living wage" of $15 an hour. Chains say they'd have to jack up prices if that ever happened. But just how high? Turns out, not as high as you might think, at least according to a University of Kansas researcher. He found that if McDonald's immediately doubled the wages of all its workers (including the $9 million CEO), it would have to raise the price of a Big Mac 68 cents, from $3.99 to $4.67, reports the Huffington Post. Items on the Dollar Menu technically wouldn't qualify anymore, but that hike...

EAST ST. LOUIS, IL (KTVI) – The morning shift at a Metro-East McDonald’s started Tuesday with protests and a heavy police presence. The crowd gathered and almost immediately started chanting: “We can’t survive on 8-25!” Both the driving rain and the predawn darkness were not enough to keep striking workers off the McDonald`s parking lot on 25th and State Streets in East St. Louis. Just in time for the 6 a.m. breakfast rush, workers demanded a pay increase to $15 an hour. That would be up from the Illinois state minimum wage of $8.25. “I’m barely making it, barely” said...

U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver Speaking at a podium set up on the Troost sidewalk, Terrance Wise, who works two part-time jobs at a Burger King and Pizza Hut, said the rally was organized because “these billion-dollar companies aren’t magically going to make our lives better overnight.” Nationally, protest organizers are calling for pay of $15 an hour, which would be more than double the current federal minimum of $7.25 an hour. . . U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, who spoke at the Kansas City rally, said it was unlikely that the current Congress will vote to raise the minimum wage, but...

Staff at well known chains including McDonald's, Burger King, KFC and Wendy's were due to walk out on Monday in New York, Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee, St Louis, Kansas City and Flint, Michigan. They are calling on fast food restaurants to pay $15 per hour, which compares to the New York state average pay of $8.25 per hour and the minimum wage of $7.25. The action is being organised by Fast Food Forward, a movement of employees from fast food outlets in New York City aimed at raising wages and increasing workers' rights

What is “the cheapest, most nutritious and bountiful food that has ever existed in human history” Hint: It has 390 calories. It contains 23g, or half a daily serving, of protein, plus 7% of daily fiber, 20% of daily calcium and so on. Also, you can get it in 14,000 locations in the US and it usually costs $1. Presenting one of the unsung wonders of modern life, the McDonald’s McDouble cheeseburger. The argument above was made by a commenter on the Freakonomics blog run by economics writer Stephen Dubner and professor Steven Leavitt, who co-wrote the million-selling books on...

You might think that customers buying their lunch at McDonald’s would order meals with fewer calories if someone handed them a slip of paper reminding them that women should eat no more than 650 calories at lunchtime and men should not exceed 800 calories. But you would be wrong. Instead, researchers found that diners who received these supposedly helpful reminders actually purchased more calories than those who didn’t, according to a new study in the American Journal of Public Health. The study authors — from the Department of Social and Decision Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and Cornell...

As the saying goes, everyone should have a budget. No matter how much or how little you make, a budget will help you reach your financial goals, right? Possibly with that idea in mind, McDonald's MCD +0.08% decided to teach its employees how to create one. But in doing so, the company may have inadvertently done something else: Shown that it’s nearly impossible to make a living off the minimum wage. Take a look at the sample budget, provided in a Web site that McDonald’s created in conjunction with Visa V +0.72%. Here are some of the main criticisms of...

McDonald's feeds 68 million people a day, 88 percent of the WORLD population recognizes the Golden Arches, and 1 in 8 Americans has worked there during his lifetime. Is McDonald's a great restaurant? Not really. It wouldn't be on most people's Top 10. How many people have a favorite food that's on its menu? Again, probably not many. Yet, it represents one of the greatest success stories in the history of business and the Republican Party can learn a lot from McDonald’s. 1) McDonald’s entire business is focused on doing things for its customers: McDonald's doesn't tell people they should...