Posted on 07/28/2013 7:52:27 PM PDT by NotYourAverageDhimmi
A few words about the McBudget.
Perhaps you’ve heard of it. As fast food workers around the country protest for higher wages, we learn that McDonald’s offers advice to help them live on the wages they make which, while not technically bupkes, do amount to a paycheck you can pretty much have the driver cash for you on the bus ride home. In December, for example, Bloomberg profiled a Chicago man who, after 20 years with the burger giant, earns $8.25 an hour — and doesn’t get 40 hours a week. This, as McDonald’s CEO Don Thompson pulled down, according to the Wall Street Journal, a compensation package worth $13.8 million last year.
Anyway, Mickey D’s isn’t blind to the difficulties of french fry makers and drive-through order takers getting by on not quite bupkes. It partnered with Visa on a showing how to live reasonably well on next to nothing.
The impossibility of doing so has been attested to by everyone from writer Barbara Ehrenreich in her book Nickel and Dimed to noted obstetrician Cliff Huxtable, in that episode of The Cosby Show where he uses Monopoly money to teach young Theo the value of a good income. It has also been attested to by the people trying to do it. But all that notwithstanding, the McBudget insists it can be done.
It envisions monthly take-home pay of $2,060 from working two (!) jobs. Out of that, you pay $600 for rent, $150 for a car note, $100 for insurance (home and auto), $100 for cable and phone, $90 for the electric bill, $20 for health insurance, etc. You save $100 a month and have $750 to play with — if, by “play,” you mean...
(Excerpt) Read more at miamiherald.com ...
When I was young, McJobs were for McKids to make a few bucks and get some work experience. If you wanted extra money, you covered additional shifts.
Individual Operators and their Managers made a “living wage” as their Jobs were their Careers.
McDonalds Business Model hasn’t changed, the influx of unskilled “immigrants” has taken those low wage entry level Jobs and attached an expectation of compensation that exceeds the skill level required.
I got mine under 50 dollars a month by keeping all lights but the one next to me off, unplugging all electrical devices not being used, and keeping the thermostat at 78 during the summer and 66 during the winter. Also, did the basic insulation and weather stripping of windows and doors tricks.
It can be done.
What people don’t seem to understand is that Minimum wage is a fare wage for the type of work done at a fast food restaurant. It is simply not the type of work that requires high pay to find willing employees.
I heard a local agitator o n the radio today going off on WalMart for paying $8 an hour, yet they never seem to notice that a new WalMart gets dozens of applications for each opening.
The same people who criticized “Leave it to Beaver” for being unrealistic always praise “The Bill Cosby Show ( Huxtables)” for being an inspiration.
BTW, life was very similar to the way it was portrayed in Leave it to Beaver when I grew up. I could identify with many of the characters. But I didn’t know any Black families where the father was a doctor, mother a lawyer and the oldest kid went to Princeton.
Hey, Leonard, those people are free to leave and get a higher paying job. They are free to open their own restaurant and pay themselve high wages too.
I guess $8.25 is a “living wage”...after all, he’s still alive.
The most vexing thing about the article is its condescension!
Wages are the price of labor. Entry level positions for unskilled workers only justify low wages. Those low wages are part of the reason why businesses such as McDonald's can be profitable while selling a modest product. If there was no profit, there would be no product, jobs, or business.
The author, Mr. Pitts, chooses to ignore that reality in his article. But in his life Mr. Pitts apparently made choices to ensure that he did not permanently work at McDonald's-style entry level positions. Despite his real-life behavior, Mr. Pitts believes that everyone deserves endless bundles of money regardless of effort or achievement.
So I have a solution for Mr. Pitts. I will select an entry level employee who is so worthless he should be fired. And then Mr. will give this employee all of his money for the rest of his life.
Should Mr. Pitts not do this, then his article and his life are an insult. Because ultimately, this is exactly the solution his is advocating for us, but never him.
He's going very slowly down a dead-end path but he can't figure out what's wrong.
The Left is constantly running down all aspects of the American society of the 1950’s, e.g. “Leave it to Beaver”. IMO it is NO coincidence that during the 1950’s, the USA had domestic Communists on the run from the law!;)
If you make stupid choices you win stupid prizes.
Possibly because that is all he can do. And he might not do even that very well. If you force them to raise his wages then they probably will find they can do without him.
Instead of the dollar menu he wants the ten dollar menu.
“I don’t know anyone who has a 90 dollar electric bill these days.”
Ours was $43 last month and we don’t try to conservr energy.
Ileave the lights on and there is at leat 2 TVs on all times if not 3 and 2 computers that are never turned off.
Where do you live and what is the size of your house?
The new McRobot won’t spit in your food because your a cracka
Wait.. This simple assclown Pitts thinks flipping burgers at a burger joint is a career? For a grownup?
/facepalm
lol
I want to start a high-tech burger place “Burger Trek” that has one worker (instead of 5-8 at a time) and all the real work is done by robots. If its a success that one worker will definitely be worth that “living wage”.
heh
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.