Christian Democrats wrote:Ifreann wrote:So you're backing off your assertion that wages reflect importance. Good. Do you have some other reasons behind your ideas about how much fast food workers should be paid?
Pay reflects a lot of things; and, in the private sector, the importance people place on certain occupations helps determine the pay. The demand for fast food workers is low because the job of being a fast food worker is relatively unimportant compared to other occupations.
On a related note, I would like to see the national minimum wage for all workers raised to $7.50.
$7.50 x 40 hours = $300 per week
$300 x 52 weeks = $15,600 per year
2013 Poverty Line -- $15,510 for a two-person household
I think every full-time worker should make enough money to meet the basic needs of himself and at least one other person.
A starting wage of $7.50 seems reasonable for fast food workers in most parts of the country.Alien Space Bats wrote:I mean, what do 20-something stockbrokers or freshly minted law associates make?
Beyond that, though, remember that the median age for fast food workers is 28.
Mathematically, that means that 50% of all fast food workers are 28 years old or more.
That is what SEIU is claiming.Organizers of the movement say the average age of a fast-food worker is 28. And two-thirds of all fast-food workers are women, with a median age of 32.
But the National Restaurant Association counters with different statistics. That group says only 5% of restaurant employees make the federal minimum wage, and that 95% earn more than $7.25 an hour.
"The majority of minimum-wage workers in the U.S. are employed in industries other than restaurants," the association said in a statement. "Less than one-third of the minimum wage workers are part of the restaurant industry."
The association also added that the average household income of restaurant employees that earn the federal minimum wage is $62,507.
"More than three-quarters of those earning the starting wage in the restaurant industry are part-time employees, 7 in 10 are under the age of 25, and nearly half are teenagers," the association said.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/fast-food-workers-walk-off-job-as-part-of-wage-movement-b9966000z1-217921821.html
Elsewhere, I saw the statistic is 47 percent teenagers.
The 28-year-olds working for fast food restaurants are not making the minimum wage.
The people making $7.25 per hour are mostly in their teens or early 20s. It is called the starting wage for a reason.
A starting wage of $15 per hour makes no sense whatsoever. We are talking about a 21-year-old Mcworker.
As I said earlier, $10 is the highest demand that I would have considered reasonable. This $15 demand is a joke. If I were the employer, I would not even negotiate with people making such absurd demands.
Working 40 hours a week, every week, no vacation, for just above poverty is horrible.