Posted on 02/11/2020 8:09:41 PM PST by grundle
Recently, McDonald’s employees have been going on strike to try to get paid $15 an hour. Associated Press reports:
Shaniqua Davis, 20, lives in the Bronx with her boyfriend, who is unemployed, and their 1-year-old daughter. Davis has worked at a McDonald’s a few blocks from her apartment for the past three months, earning $7.25 an hour. Her schedule varies, but she never gets close to 40 hours a week. “Forty? Never. They refuse to let you get to that (many) hours.”
Her weekly paycheck is $150 or much lower. “One of my paychecks, I only got $71 on there. So I wasn’t able to do much with that. My daughter needs stuff, I need to get stuff for my apartment,” said Davis, who plans to take part in the strike Thursday.
She pays the rent with public assistance but struggles to afford food, diapers, subway and taxi fares, cable TV and other expenses with her paycheck.
“It’s really hard,” she said. “If I didn’t have public assistance to help me out, I think I would have been out on the street already with the money I make at McDonald’s.”
So, Shaniqua Davis says that it’s “really hard” to take care of a baby on what McDonald’s pays.
She’s right.
So why did she try to do such a thing in the first place?
Why did she choose to become an unmarried teenage mother?
Whatever her reasons were, it’s not McDonald’s fault.
Of course you can’t raise a family on what McDonald’s pays its cashiers. But that kind of job was never intended to be for people who are trying to raise a family. Instead, that kind of job is supposed to be for a teenager trying to get money to pay for the prom, or for a student who is working their way through college.
And what is this nonsense of having a baby out of wedlock, and then being surprised as how hard it is? Of course it’s hard. That’s why the institution of marriage has existed, in every society, all over the world, for thousands of years.
The article also says that Ms. Davis “struggles” to pay for her cable TV. This just shows how much things have changed in this country. In the past, being poor meant that you couldn’t get 2,000 calories per day, or that you didn’t have indoor plumbing, or that your roof leaked. But now, being poor means that you have difficulty paying for cable TV. My, how things have changed.
Ms. Davis and the other strikers want to get paid $15 an hour, but they don’t want to acquire the education and job skills that would justify such a salary. McDonald’s already pays some of its employees more than $15 an hour, such as its accountants, lawyers, and computer programmers. Those employees didn’t get those higher wages by going on strike. Instead, they got those higher wages by putting in the time and effort to acquire the education and job skills that justify those higher wages. Ms. Davis and the other strikers want higher wages, but they don’t want to provide anything in exchange for the extra pay.
What would happen if the government did require McDonald’s to pay all of its employees $15 an hour? One possibility is that McDonald’s would only hire people who had a college degree. If that were to be the case, Ms. Davis would end up getting paid nothing. Another possibility is that McDonald’s would replace its human workers with robots and self-serve checkouts. And again, if that were to be the case, Ms. Davis would end up getting paid nothing.
I bet she and boy wonder have cell phones, too.
You're welcome.
I doubt the claimed $ 7.25 per hour. I believe McDonalds in NYC starts around $13.
I hope all the fast food places get Robots soon, to do the work.
Cashiers have to be able to handle simple arithmetic. Even if Shaniqua works the register and McDonalds, their machines use pictograms in place of numerals.
Note that the article is dated August 2013.
Taxis and cable TV. In a city with mass transit everywhere and dozens of channels of free broadcast TV? Go eff off, leech!
2013? What the hell?
Tell her lowlife sperm donor to get off his duff and find a job.
New York minimum wage
....
The current minimum wage rate in New York is $11.80 per hour. This listed rate is for most employers in New York State. The minimum wage in New York City is $15.00 per hour for large employers (11 or more employees) and for small employers (10 or less employees).
The machines do the math. And give change.
Cashiers have to be able to handle simple arithmetic. Even if Shaniqua works the register and McDonalds, their machines use pictograms in place of numerals.
....
How does that work? Pictures of dead presidents?
Oh oh. Their not used to hearing this sort of straight truth.
No, pedestrian cell phones are $19.99 unlocked now. The sista and her baby daddy are sporting the latest $700 iPhones with all the bells and whistles, you betcha.
They might be more pleasant.
August 29, 2013 | Wordpress
Pictures...of the food. Someone orders 3 Big Macs? Press Big Mac button 3 times.
Fair point, if no cash is involved.
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