Should McDonald’s Pay $15/hour?

PJ Tatler ^ | April 5, 2013 | Scott Ott

[2ndDivisionVet]

As low-wage food service workers demand a doubling of their pay, an uncurious journalist never wonders how people who earn $7.25 per hour were able to organize a “nationwide” strike replete with crisply-printed protest signs. For that matter, the dullard scribe doesn’t indicate whether “nationwide” connotes thousands of people in hundreds of locations or a dozen folks on two street corners.

Bad journalism is defined most often by what it lacks, rather than what it states. Incompetence, or conscious manipulation, are found in the question unasked, the fact unmentioned, the absence of context. The passive reader will never notice.

Reporting work of this caliber deserves less than $7.25 per hour, but it does provide an opportunity to explain, once again, how the world works.

Here are a few basic facts of life that each child should take to heart…and by “child” I mean journalist.

1) Your pay is not based on how much money you need to enjoy the lifestyle you desire.
2) Your pay is determined by the skill needed to do the work, and the difficulty of replacing you.
3) If your employer were to jack up your pay beyond those parameters she would have to jack up her prices, which would chase away customers, thereby reducing her need for you. (She alternately could reduce her profits, but that would scare off investors who provide the juice for growth. Stagnation is death.)
4) If you ever get paid what you’re worth, you will soon be fired....

[Waryone]

Do I hate unions, yes, any conservative would. Do I hate corporate cabals, yes, I hate them too. That is why I said, I don’t like either arm of socialism. The point is simple. If you find you are not making enough money do something about it.

So you think I’m a fat cat free trader? Ha! My father worked three jobs as a teenager to support his family. Another family member saw his livelihood removed from him by public corporatists (county govt.) and he went out got a home study course in electronics and started his own very lucrative business back in the 60’s. No one whined about their situation or played the ‘gimme, gimme, it’s not fair’ song to anyone. They worked.

I grew up poor but no one in this country has to stay that way. I am not a free trader. I believe in the sovereignty of this country. But I am not a communist/socialist either. Every single one of those union is my salvation, and the govt. is my new god, workers will soon learn how poorly their new god does at saving them.

People in this country all need to take economics courses. They don’t even understand how these gimme gimme policies are destroying our country and our society. In the old Soviet socialist countries you got a salary set by the govt. There was no incentive whatsoever to improve because the salary they gave you was the salary you got no matter how well you performed. You see what happened to the Soviet economy. With out reward for the diligent and skilled workers, they performed no better than the lazy bums who think they are owed a living. When I was growing up there was a song associated with the appropriately named Disney character, Goofy. The song was: the World Owes Me a Living.

If you want more money:

gain more valuable skills
be diligent at your work
apply your knowledge wisely
honor the Lord in all you do

Trusting the Lord won’t necessarily make you rich, but He always takes care of His own.

[discostu]

Salaries are based on both what the market will allow and what the employee produces. When the cost of employees goes up companies stop hiring. Look at WalMart, they have fewer employees now than in 2008 even though they have more stores, because employee costs have gone up and the return on investment for employees (what they are worth) no longer makes their previous staffing model profitable.

The question isn’t whether an employee is being paid UP TO their worth, the question is if they are being paid MORE THAN their worth. That’s something companies need to avoid.