[grania]

If Wendy's has less employees and they all earn a living wage ($12/hour for fully trained and a year or so on the job) I'm all for it. If they can live better and NOT collect any government handouts, everybody gains.

All those part time cheap labor jobs are doing is subsidizing folks who are living off handouts. Why should they be subsidized with that money? It means they're living better on the dole than off of it. They already get too much.

[Buckeye McFrog]

You have a point in that the cycle will be:

More people out of a job/living on handouts = Demand for more revenue for the Federal Government = Higher taxes on the people still working at Wendy’s (including senior management who made this call).

It’s a tangled web of unintended consequences.

[dhs12345]

Maybe our economy has evolved or devolved but fast food joint jobs were not intended to be a lifetime career path. Something is wrong if an adult in his or her late 20s, 30s, 40s is still working in fast food.... and demanding a living wage. This is the real problem and maybe we should be asking why.

Fast food joints cannot afford to pay their employees a lot — because their customers are expecting a dirt cheap, quality, meal.

BTW, I worked in fast food, my wife too, and we gained some valuable life experiences.... but both of us were kids.

[Safetgiver]

earn a living wage ($12/hour ....Is that a living wage for a person who lives at his parent’s house and takes a bus (or less likely walks) to work or is a living wage for someone who rents an apartment (or God forbid pays a mortgage)has children and needs a vehicle to fullfill his obligations? I’m cornfused. Is this Socialism writ large?