Fast Food Worker Strikes!

[Tyrannical]

Back in the 1950s one US dollar was exchangeable for one ounce of silver. Minimum wage in 1950 was 3/4 ounce of silver an hour, which is $17.50 in today's money as silver is currently $23.50 an ounce. The current $7.25 an hour minimum wage works out to 31 cents an hour in 1950s silver equivalence.

[Hermit]

Back in the 1950s one US dollar was exchangeable for one ounce of silver. Minimum wage in 1950 was 3/4 ounce of silver an hour, which is $17.50 in today's money as silver is currently $23.50 an ounce. The current $7.25 an hour minimum wage works out to 31 cents an hour in 1950s silver equivalence.

Fascinating!

Now could you repeat the same comparison using something that is actually relevant? Like a kilo of potatoes, a family car, a home or an ounce of pot?

[JimC]

Back in the 1950s one US dollar was exchangeable for one ounce of silver. Minimum wage in 1950 was 3/4 ounce of silver an hour, which is $17.50 in today's money as silver is currently $23.50 an ounce. The current $7.25 an hour minimum wage works out to 31 cents an hour in 1950s silver equivalence.

Fascinating!

Now could you repeat the same comparison using something that is actually relevant? Like a kilo of potatoes, a family car, a home or an ounce of pot?

Better still, the average weekly cost of a smart phone/internet service...

[Hermit]

Back in the 1950s one US dollar was exchangeable for one ounce of silver. Minimum wage in 1950 was 3/4 ounce of silver an hour, which is $17.50 in today's money as silver is currently $23.50 an ounce. The current $7.25 an hour minimum wage works out to 31 cents an hour in 1950s silver equivalence.

Fascinating!

Now could you repeat the same comparison using something that is actually relevant? Like a kilo of potatoes, a family car, a home or an ounce of pot?

Better still, the average weekly cost of a smart phone/internet service...

Sure. If those were available in the 50s.

[Cormac]

Worst thing about low wages is to keep the people alive the state (ie tax payer) has to top up their wages. Majority of welfare payments goes to people in work. It really shows capitalism at least at the low end doesn't work. Companies paying low wages simply aren't profitable as in effect its the tax payer paying their employees wages.

I have no problems paying out welfare to people looking for work, I have serious issues in handing out to those who are in work (that's the employers job)

Of course, this Walmart business model is capitalist, as it depends entirely upon state funding.

[Cormac]

As I said, fast-food is NOT meant to be a career, it's an entry level job and the vast majority of people who earn minimum wage do so for about a year before they move upwards and onwards to better jobs, which is exactly as it should be.

...
Working in fast food isn't SUPPOSED to be a living wage, it's supposed to be a starting point and training pay, and that's it.

No. It's supposed to be a means for fast food companies to make money. All this ball snot about, "Teaching youth how to work" is just so much greasy salesmanship and spoogy spin. They are in business to make money, not perform charity. If there wasn't a business economic need to have those kids greeting customers, washing lettuce, and emptying trash, they wouldn't be there for one fucking second.

Let's just be clear: Those kids are there because they're cheap, exploitable and their employers are tight as cat's asses. All the rest is straight Special Sauce to justify child labor.


"On my very first job I said "Thank you" and "Please"
They had me scrub a parking lot, down on my knees
Then I got fired, for bein' scared of bees
And they only paid me fifty cents an hour" -- John Prine

That was more than I got in my first job at the age of 12.

[Cormac]

Back in the 1950s one US dollar was exchangeable for one ounce of silver. Minimum wage in 1950 was 3/4 ounce of silver an hour, which is $17.50 in today's money as silver is currently $23.50 an ounce. The current $7.25 an hour minimum wage works out to 31 cents an hour in 1950s silver equivalence.

Interesting, but the relativities between labour price and the price of solver, gold, or any other commodity does not stay static.

Like any other traded item, the price of silver rises and falls with the emotion and hysteria of the markets. It has no inherent value - value being an almost meaningless concept outside the immediate emotional orientation of market participants.

[Warren Dew]

. Bottom line, double the minimum wage or "just" increase it by 50%, and a large proportion of the minimum wage workers will be thrown out of work entirely.

So this will close a large proportion of McDonald's? Or are you "just" saying that a large proportion the burger flippers at uber-efficient McDonald's are really unnecessary?

It would close a significant percent of McDonalds - even the small gap between the $7.25 U.S. minimum wage and the $8 youth wage in Australia helps Australia have 30% fewer McDonalds per capita, despite lower beef prices there. In addition, a higher wage would make automation cost effective for a significant fraction of the remaining jobs; in Europe, this has already happened with self service kiosks replacing employees in the McDonalds restaurants there.

If they work out there, they'll soon be here, regardless of the minimum US law allows McDonalds to compensate most of its employees.

That all depends on how expensive the kiosk system is compared to using human cashiers. The evidence is that a kiosk system is more expensive than human workers at current minimum wage, and less expensive than human workers at European wage, thus the use of kiosks in Europe only.

Substantially increasing cashier wages in the U.S. will change that calculation, causing the workers to be laid off in favor of machines, as Coito pointed out.

(And how the heck can Australians raise and process beef cheaper with their exorbitant wage structure in the first place?)

The main input for beef production isn't labor, it's energy. Australia has far more sunlight - or grazing land, if you prefer - per capita, so it has a strong competitive advantage when it comes to raising beef.

Incidentally, Australian beef is used by McDonald's China too:

http://www.ausfoodnews.com.au/2011/08/1 ... ustry.html

And it's not just McDonalds, of course. An increase in the minimum wage would throw all sorts of minimum wage earners out of work and onto the welfare rolls, which would of course increase the burden on the already shrinking number of employed taxpayers we still have.

... It just translates the grid to a new origin. Everyone makes more $$.

No, it doesn't. Just because the minimum wage doubles does not mean that doctors' salaries will double as well, for example. It just means that people whose wages are worth less than the new minimum wage won't have jobs any more.

[Warren Dew]

So, please don't bother with your (plural) "increased wages will lead to economic doom" blather unless you can come up with convincing evidence that this is generally true.

Who said anything about "economic doom"? As I already pointed out, a doubling of the minimum wage will help unions; it just shuts out the people at the bottom of the economic ladder.

[MrJonno]

So, please don't bother with your (plural) "increased wages will lead to economic doom" blather unless you can come up with convincing evidence that this is generally true.

Who said anything about "economic doom"? As I already pointed out, a doubling of the minimum wage will help unions; it just shuts out the people at the bottom of the economic ladder.

The people at the bottom of the economic ladder are already shut out regardless of minimum wage, think you will actually be able to get a job as a waiter or shop assistant without a degree ?

My local restaurant is degree or completing a degree staff only . You need to be numerate, good language skills and IT literate to use the tills. The reality of education and employer demands today that means a degree..

Even worse we have a charity shop (thrift in the US) that will only employ graduates (ie allow volunteers working for nothing) to get experience.

Capitalism is in crisis as we simply have far too many people to ever use productively

[cronus]

So, please don't bother with your (plural) "increased wages will lead to economic doom" blather unless you can come up with convincing evidence that this is generally true.

Who said anything about "economic doom"? As I already pointed out, a doubling of the minimum wage will help unions; it just shuts out the people at the bottom of the economic ladder.

The people at the bottom of the economic ladder are already shut out regardless of minimum wage, think you will actually be able to get a job as a waiter or shop assistant without a degree ?

My local restaurant is degree or completing a degree staff only . You need to be numerate, good language skills and IT literate to use the tills. The reality of education and employer demands today that means a degree..

Even worse we have a charity shop (thrift in the US) that will only employ graduates (ie allow volunteers working for nothing) to get experience.

Capitalism is in crisis as we simply have far too many people to ever use productively

Plague sorted this issue out in the middle ages. It's democratic and everyone get's a golden ticket who survives. Are there any unemployed genetic engineering graduates or gene-hackers prepared to do the math?

[MrJonno]

War is generally a more selective version of culling, you only get the poor (or stupid rich) killed

[Warren Dew]

So, please don't bother with your (plural) "increased wages will lead to economic doom" blather unless you can come up with convincing evidence that this is generally true.

Who said anything about "economic doom"? As I already pointed out, a doubling of the minimum wage will help unions; it just shuts out the people at the bottom of the economic ladder.

The people at the bottom of the economic ladder are already shut out regardless of minimum wage, think you will actually be able to get a job as a waiter or shop assistant without a degree ?

My local restaurant is degree or completing a degree staff only . You need to be numerate, good language skills and IT literate to use the tills. The reality of education and employer demands today that means a degree.

Are you serious? The U.S. has not gotten to that point, at least not yet.

[jaydot]

what i find particularly pernicious is the zero hours contracts foisted onto the lowest paid employees which requires them to be available with no guarantee of enough hours to work to earn enough to live. that disgusting method has made its way to britain and it means that the taxpayers are now subsidising businesses to the tune of tax credits to top up the measly wages these greedy cunts of business fail to pay their staff.

people can bang on all they like about marxism and socialism, but that's exactly what business is sucking from the public teat at the expense of the workers, without whom they have no fucking business. i try to find out which of these gigantic corporations use these zero hour contracts and boycott them, as i do anything halal, which is equally disgusting and unwelcome.

[MrJonno]

It's heading that in the entire western world, people are getting better educated with lower skilled jobs getting rarer and rarer.

Through according DVD commentary in 'Dexter' US American detectives have doctorates (ours rarely have a degree). On the whole I don't think most people are ready for economic activity until they are 21 at least these days