I'll gladly pay 10 bucks or whatever for a value meal but I wonder if the wages were raised how many would be ultimately replaced with a different demographic of worker?
The greater injustice in that area is paying illegal immigrants pennies an hour to pick strawberries. Like THAT industry is worth compromising our humanity. This entire minimum wage talk is about minimum wages for the non-slave class.
Why does everyone assume it is a given demand will drop if the price of fast food increases across the board? Fast food price wars are about Wendy's v McDonalds not Wendy's vs local sushi restaurant. I guess I don't understand why it is the job where min wages battles are fought.
It isn't their intention or main business model to own stores. They are a franchise. The stores they own are mostly overseas and underperforming stores if I recall correctly. The franchisees are responsible for determining the wages of their workers. There is nowhere in the McDonald's franchise agreement that states what a franchisee can or should pay a worker. Please stop acting like McDonald's or other franchises have some sort of conspiracy policy to pay workers low wages in order to take advantage of the government directly or indirectly. I'm just trying reiterate that the people who own franchises are small business owners. They aren't multimillionaires or multibillionaires. Sam...I'm the guy who originally bumped this thread saying that we need to raise the min wage significantly. We need to do it in a reasonable way that doesn't limit younger people from the workforce like in France. I think the British and Australian models with lower wages for 16 to 21 year olds is better.
The problem is franchisees don't set the prices. The franchisor sets the prices with these fast food franchises.
This ignores the fact MCD and UPS and everyone else don't want all their franchise-owned stores to fail, and they do have plenty of money and profits. If minimum wage were to be raised, it would be smart of the multi-billion dollar corporations to reduce their franchise fees or make other adjustments to help support their franchisees. Having all your McDonalds owners losing money is not a good business model for the corporate offices. Minimum wages have been raised regularly over the years. Right now, it's well below what it was in the 1970's when adjusted for inflation. Wages should never be raised in a brutal, immediate fashion (ie, to $10/hr overnight), but there's no history of these companies failing when minimum wages have gone up in a reasonable way. You also look only at wages and not revenues. When all these people are making more money, they are going to be spending more money - often at these same fast food places.
I'm looking at the big picture. Let's assume that minimum wage does get increased. In a few years, there will be another call to increase minimum wage. And so on and so forth. At some point, it will be in a company's best interest to replace as many minimum wage jobs with machines as it can. In these kinds of debates, neither side can really prove anything. If you want actual evidence, you need to implement the proposed change. At this point, it's all about which side makes a more compelling argument. Which of my assumptions do you find illogical? So if minimum wage were raised to $30 per hour, you don't think that would lead to hundreds of thousands of unemployed workers?
1. It's not "the big picture" - rather you're moving the goalposts. Since there's no automated fast food robot now - we shouldn't solve the current problem and increase minimum wage to 10, because at a later date, due to fantastical development and refinement in the field of robotics, it would be silly to increase it to 15...?. That's just dumb- no further explanation required. 2. In these kinds of debates - its incumbent to provide some factual backing if you're going to participate. Fact - minimum wage is below the poverty level and is incredibly low by historical standards in real terms. Fact - as a consequence, these workers are forced to supplement their income with public assistance Fact- fast food industry seems to disproportionately benefit from the above and us able to obtain labor at cos *below* what it would otherwise have to pay. These facts are very well established - to which your response is idle musing about nonexistent robots.... 3. Nobody is proposing to raise min wage that high. Though most evidence indicates that the amount of unemployment following increases in minimum wage is vastly exaggerated. So to answer your question- if we *quadrupled * min wage tomorrow- yes I would expect to see *substantial * disruption in labor markets. However- that's not what is being proposed.
Self-service kiosks in fast food establishment already exist in Europe. We have self-checkout registers in grocery stores. Are you seriously denying that the replacement of minimum wage workers with machines has already begun? And what happens when minimum wage is raised to the point automated alternatives are cheaper? That's been my point all along. I know, I know. You're going to say that it's illogical. But why do you think it's illogical? You've yet to give a compelling argument. Meanwhile, I've already detailed the holes I see in your arguments.
Machines have replaced workers on auto assembly lines and in other places as well. Cost is also the rationale behind some of the jobs in this country going overseas. It is real and it is devastating to the people that did those jobs here. However, the minimum wage probably does need to be adjusted. It has not kept up with inflation. Tying the minimum wage to CPI is a reasonable thing to do. While the minimum wage should be adjusted to reflect the increase in the cost of living, I am not sure that the cost of living justifies a doubling of the minimum wage, as some have suggested.
Yes and such machines constitute not even a fraction of a percentage compared to their human counterparts ( who are much more highly compensated in Europe). This example more shows how terrible a substitute they are. Vending machines have been around for almost a century. Yet years of worker protections have accrued. So im not only denying thst the replacement of restaurants by 1950s era automats is underway - im extremely confident in my lifetime. And i have decades of evidebce in support thereof, and you have nothing. Time to move on. What happens then is irrelevant because we are not at that point now as has been exhaustively established, and no action we take now has any bearing on it in any material way I
I have nothing? Really? Referencing where the technology exists and is already in use is "nothing"? I think you're missing my point. I'm fine with increasing the minimum wage. But companies exist to make a profit, and once the cost of unskilled labor exceeds the costs of automation, there's going to be a problem. Like I said before, I'm looking at the big picture. You're only looking at what's right in front of you. What about the people who want minimum wage raised to $15? If that were to pass, you don't think that would spur investments into alternative sources of production?
Yes it would be smart, but it also took an act of God to get MCD to re-think their dollar menu. Franchisees were complaining how it was killing their profits for years. I can't speak too much about MCD, but I know a lot about UPS Stores. To make it short the franchisor is completely stupid for the most part. It's truly amazing. Yes the don't want their franchise owned stores to fail, but they are also completely disorganized and unresponsive to franchisee needs and demands. The top level people who run the UPS Store at the executive level have minimal retail experience and have no experience running UPS Stores and have no skin in the game. Lastly, the point you made about the franchisor reducing royalty fees to benefit the franchisee would be nice in reality, but it isn't reality. The franchisor cares very little about the franchisees profit margins. Luckily I have a partner who knows what he is doing and he has been extremely successful. It has truly been a mind blowing experience dealing with the UPS Store franchise and it is flat out amazing how incompetent of an organization it is. The bolded is one of the main reasons why I want to raise min wage. It has been shown with every 10% rise in min wage you get about a .7% - 1% increase in inflation. I think raising the min wage would be a more effective tool for stimulating the economy than the current Fed policies. Again, like I told Sam, I want the min wage raised significantly. http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showpost.php?p=8486186&postcount=216 That was on page 11.
I didn't read all of this, but what's wrong with a maximum wage? I mean really, what do people need with multiple cars, boats, homes, maids, whatever in the hell they buy? I wouldn't know how to spend even a few million after I had my family and friends who have been there for me regardless taken care of. But then again, I'll never know what it's like to be rich. “I used to work at McDonald's making minimum wage. You know what that means when someone pays you minimum wage? You know what your boos was trying to say? "Hey if I could pay you less, I would, but it's against the law.” - Chris Rock
“I used to work at McDonald's making minimum wage. You know what that means when someone pays you minimum wage? You know what your boos was trying to say? "Hey if I could pay you less, I would, but it's against the law.” BS. There are people that think this way.
