Or, McDonald's Could Double Wages For Employees, And Just Make Less Money | Hacker News Reader

Or, McDonald's Could Double Wages For Employees, And Just Make Less Money

businessinsider.com

5 pointsgrecy10 comments

This is silly, and it won't help poor people. at least not for very long.

While McDonalds as a whole could afford the pay hike, some portion of it's stores (10%? 20%? maybe 50%?) would become unprofitable overnight. Then what? Shutter the stores? Lay off half the employees? Either way it's defeating the purpose.

Also, new employees would be hired at the new wages (presumably) which means McDonalds wouldn't be hiring poor people anymore. In 5 years or so, we'd have people with associates degrees flipping burgers for $14 an hour, their shift managers would have Bachelor's and make $18-20/hour. Not necessarily a bad thing, but it won't help anyone out of poverty.

Could be worse. Where I'm located in the Philippines a local making typical pay would have to spend an entire day of wages just to afford a 1/4 pounder w/ cheese meal (approx $3.75.) I don't know how much McD's employees make here, but I'm assuming they make minimum wage (approx $6 / day) which is actually a very good job here. Many local businesses in my area use loopholes to get around the minimum wage laws.Though minimum wage varies by job classification. The minimum wage for domestic helpers for example is something like $2.50 per day.

Edit: Just to clarify, these prices are for the McD's in my city in the Philippines. So, imagine that your local McD's is a luxury meal which costs the equivalent of one day of pay.

I'm all for giving low-wage workers a larger share of the productivity gains made in the last few decades, but this kind of simplistic thinking doesn't take the immense complexity of the macroeconomy into account. Prices on goods won't simply stay flat. Stock prices will plummet, affecting pension funds and individual investors (i.e. the middle class) disproportionately. Wage disparity is a serious problem, and there's unfortunately no simple solution.

Well, maybe not:

http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/a_big_mac_miss_by_the_huffingt....

Should companies double the pay of employees? Well if the employees aren't complaining and people are willing to take the pay then what's really the incentive?

Business does whatever it can get away with. The workers qualify for all kinds of government benefits because they don't make enough to live on. McDonald's Profits $8.5 Billion per year. Should taxpayers but subsidizing McDonald's? http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/07/30/fast-food-w...

They're not going to complain if they're afraid of being fired. Restaurant work is some of the hardest work out there, if you put in a full working week that shouldn't leave someone in poverty.

Working, no matter how many hours, does not dictate what you get paid. Your value in the marketplace does. Fact is, fast food workers aren't very valuable and are easily replaced. Hence, they get paid very little.

If you can throw touchdown passes like Brady or Rodgers, you'll get paid millions. Can't do that? Ok...then if you could perform brain surgery, you'll get paid less than top NFL QBs, but still in the millions. Can't do that? Ok...then if you could write code or perform accounting work, you'll likely get a decent 6 figure salary. Can't do that?

What can you do? Flip a burger? Seriously? There is no value in that. Bring something to the table in order to get paid well. Bring some skill, some education, some certification, some licensing. Bring something instead of whining how your lack of skills and education cause you to be poorly paid.

There's more to economics than just supply and demand.

What can you do? Flip a burger? Seriously? There is no value in that.

Hence the popularity of self-service burger restaurants...oh, wait. The thing is you're assuming perfect competition, which is manifestly not an appropriate model, since food service providers are engaged in monopolistic competition.

Bring something instead of whining how your lack of skills and education cause you to be poorly paid.

I don't work in food service, I'm making a comment about people who do. Dial that attitude back.

Monopolistic competition? More whining. Fact is, the restaurants exist and provide jobs at a certain level of pay. Job applicants are free to apply or not apply. There is no monopoly. There are thousands upon thousands of restaurants in the country. Dial that attitude back.

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