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Wendy's Explains What Happens When Fry Cooks Make $15/Hour
By now, it should be abundantly clear - even to the most vocal proponents of a higher minimum wage - that across-the-board raises have very real, and sometimes unpredictable consequences.
At Wal-Mart for instance, a move to hike the pay floor for the retailer’s lowest paid workers hurt morale among higher paid employees, may have led to discussions to cut up to 1,000 jobs at the company’s home office in Bentonville, and quite possibly contributed to a decision to close five stores for "plumbing problems."
Meanwhile, at Seattle-based payments processor Gravity Payments, one CEO’s quest to create a better life for his 120 employees backfired when a move to raise the company-wide pay floor to $70,000 was accompanied by a myriad of far-reaching and unintended consequences.
At the most basic level, the argument against hastily construed wage hikes is that forcing employers to pay everyone more will simply prompt companies to fire people or at the very least, curtail hiring. As one Burger King franchisee recently told CBS, "[fast food] businesses are not going to pay $15 dollars an hour [because] the economics don't work in this industry. There is a limit to what you're going to pay for a hamburger."
With that in mind, we present the following commentary from Wendy’s most recent conference call with no comment:
Todd A. Penegor - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President
Yeah. So we continue to see pressure on wages two fronts, one is minimum wages at the state level continue to increase, and as there is a war on talent to make sure that we're competitive in certain markets. So we've made some adjustments to that starting wage in certain markets. The impact hasn't been material at the moment, but we continue to look at initiatives on how we do work to offset any impact to future wage inflation through technology initiatives, whether that's customer self-order kiosks, whether that's automating more in the back of the house in the restaurant, and you'll see a lot more coming on that front later this year from us.
John William Ivankoe - JPMorgan Securities LLC
Okay, understood. I mean there is obviously a lot of discussion of wage prices, wage costs and that there would be increased pricing at the franchise level to offset those increased wages, especially in markets like New York for example that are going to see some very severe increases in wage costs. So can you juxtapose the franchisees' desire and/or need to take pricing at the store level with what sounds like an increased focus overall for the brand on value, can those two things be achieved simultaneously?
Emil J. Brolick - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director
Yeah, John, this is Emil. And our franchisees, I find them to be very astute business people, and they have a great sense of their trade areas where their restaurants are and a great I think understanding of what the competitive environment is in terms of their capacity to price. I think the reality is that what you will see in like some of these markets, the New Yorks, where there is these very significant increases, is that they will be – our franchisee will slightly likely look at the opportunity to reduce overall staff, look at the opportunity to certainly reduce hours and any other cost reduction opportunities, not just price. There are some people out there who naively say that these wages can simply be passed along in terms of price increases. I don't think that the average franchisee believes that, and there will have to be other consequences, which is why we have pointed out that unfortunately we believe the some of these increases will clearly end up hurting the people that they are intended to help.
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These CEOs need a Heart Adjustment.
https://biblicisminstitute.wordpress.com/2015/04/16/the-heart-adjustment/
$18.00 cheeseburgers is what happens... Or, GMO'd ingredients in those burgers... oh, wait...
I never ever eat them shits or feed them shits to my kids but if they raise that shit to $50 and Hour I am going to get me a part time job and put some dumb ass on unemployment.
"Employees produce more value per hour than they are paid per hour. That surplus amount of value, once converted from commodity to money (through the sale), is profit, and goes to the capitalist. The same goes for services.
Thus, quite literally, the entire history of capitalism is built on the concept of the capitalist getting more than what he pays for."
OK.. so you reduce store staff by 75% and pay minimum wage to the remainder to supervise the burger flipping, condiment applying, and conveyor delivery automation.
Thus, quite literally, the entire history of capitalism is built on the concept of the capitalist getting more than what he pays for."
Those who own the means of production which can include anything from a pizza shop to a giant factory provide workers with the means to produce at a level they could not achieve without that capital equipment. The worker earns more money working for those who own the means of production than he could if he worked by himself with his own capital equipment. So it is not only the owners and managers who get more out of the system than they put into it, the workers also get more out of it than they put into it. That's the beauty of capitalism and voluntary association. Those who interact in this fashion do so because it is the best available means of profit for each participant and it makes more goods more widely available thus creating a varied and vibrant market in which those profits can be exchanged.
Now if we could only chop off the hands of the Not so invisible hand of the fascists, we might observe an least a simulacra of free enterprise.
"You didn't build that." - Dear Leader Obama.
If you don't like the wages and benefits that burger flippers are paid, open your own burger place, put your own money at risk, and pay your illiterate burger flippers $20/hour. When you close your burger place, losing everything, maybe you'll take an economics class. You just had an expensive introductory one.
I used to eat where the owners attempted exactly that. They were trying to prove you could do all organic at the same price as fast food, and pay workers more, by just foregoing profit.
They were out of business within a month. Too bad, the food was great.
That would be a very good class to offer.
As a small business owner, please compete with me. Keeps me on my toes.
Government is always the biggest problem. Its schools teach students to be envious of successful people and strategies thereby ensuring the failure of those students to live self sustaining lives while radicalizing them with promises of money looted from productive individuals.
And while all the wealth redistribution is going on government takes the biggest and juiciest cut.
Given that the rational employer (the employer who wants to stay in business) will hire/retain an employee only when the marginal revenue resulting from the hire is greater than the marginal cost (cetris paribus), minimum wage legislation increases the number of nonproductive government dependents and...this will be increasingly significant going forward...it increases the pool of disenfranchised young men available to fill the ranks of the "all volunteer" imperial army.
It s a win-win for the state.
What happens when we automate everything? When will we pass that event horizon? How is this going to work when my smart fridge consults my smart home system that there isn't anything at home for dinner and sends my ASIMO assitant down to the new McDonald's kiosk in the google car to get me a $20 hamburger...
Where is that twenty dollars (or ______ currency) coming from? What is left for me as a human to do?
What happens when we automate everything?
Keep in mind rational human action. Suppose that all jobs are taken by robots. Then no one has any money to buy what the robots produce and the robots are out of business. They're done.
Additionally, if humans have no employment and therefore no money for food and clothing then they will grow their own food, make their own clothing and trade with each other as some people will be able to do a particular job better than others. A new human economy would spring up along side the robot economy until the robot economy died for lack of customers.
The only thing that could maintain the robot economy and prevent the rise of a competing human economy would be government. Government has great experiencing in destroying small business and taking away the ability of the individual craftsman to support himself and his family by working from his home/shop as used to be common.
I know that there will be a competing human market, I'm just wondering where the tipping point is... How much credit can be pushed through the economy to support these systems before they start to implode on themselves for the reasons you point out.
"The connection was reset."
This site has become so buggy as to be almost unusable.
Skynet. Skynet will happen. Skynet will have the twenty bucks
You, as a human have lots of options that don't involve a smart fridge, ASIMO, a Google car or kiosks.
Mick Dodge already has that reality show and a few time slots...
If you haven't noticed we are already there with a large portion of the population. There are not enough jobs so we create new pointless ones. Wel I'm not wealthy and cannot get a loan let alone start a business so I am the one to blame for going on the dole. Not the people with the welth who hoard and dont invest. Fuck this game all I here from anti min wagers is fuck this portion of the population I want cheaper shit. And for the retards a 100% increase in min wage does not equate to a 1000% increase in the product. And on the other side are the pro min wasgers who are stupid enough to think that equality means 15/hr for a walmart greeter and 15/hr for a road worker is equal. Both sides are fucking stupid and should take to heart the recent article here about a need for a total revamping of how we aproach humaity, economics, and progress, especially the use of government as a means.
Switch production models from factories to big banks.
A financial services worker is outfitted with large credits that (s)he could not obtain if working solo.
A financial services worker is placed into an environment, where ((s)he can get inside info about the trade.
If that person does not produce huge profits, that person is fired. The survivors move up and collect more.
believe me....the Gov-scum know exactly what they're doing by creating this minimum wage war to get the "underclass" folk all pissed off.
They know it means new high tech innovations which will eliminate many of those jobs. And they know the higher wages will increase customer costs which will push sales down and thus also eliminate jobs or even entire locations.
It's just another tactic purposly being used against us to overwhelm the system. It's just another component of the Cloward and Piven strategy, or the basic strategy to destroy the system, impoverish the majority of the population, blame it all on Capitalism, and suck nearly everybody into a Gov-scum welfare system.
Both sides know what they're doing...they're hitting the population from all angles as hard and as fast as they can right now. This is what the downfall looks like. This is how the corporate, fascism of the 21st century is being rolled out to the world.
And it doesn't just affect those in that lower socio-economic situation either...those of us who think we're doing well are going to continue to be squeezed by higher prices for everything and by higher taxes to subsidize the Gov-scum welfare systems to "take care" of the majority of the rest of the population who can't make a living.
It's all part of the grand plan. This is by design to take everything down. And as we continue down economically the Gov-scum continues to pile on with all their other bullshit to keep the masses fighting with each other over race, gender, politics, religion, and our basic god given rights.
This devastating plan against humanity across the entire planet has become unstoppable at this point in my opinion. People call G.S. the "Vampire Squid" for having it's blood-sucking tentacles in every part of the economy, business, government, etc.
Well this Marxist, Fascist bullshit is a whole other vampire squid just as big and just as destructive that they're using against us simultaneously.
I really don't believe there's any way to reverse course at this point. Common sense and critical thinking and proper education and even adequate fucking IQ's are in very short supply in this world now. Those of us who are left...well they're just going to run us over with hundreds of millions of other people, plain and simple.
That's why obama has already let 10's of millions into the country in just a few years. What do you think those numbers will be like in 10 years? And those people who only ever knew oppressive Socialism are going to create generation after generation of the same kinds of people who will only know Socialism and oppression in the new America.
These 10's and 100's of millions of people are going to run right into the same trap they thought they were running from in Central and South America or from every other shitty country they come from to get into the U.S.
And these sick, psycho, treasonous, sociopath, Gov-scum will be there smiling and shaking their hands and welcoming every single one of these people into the new America. Signing them up to vote against all our rights and our freedom. Signing them up for "free everything" paid for by debt and taxes. Loving every moment as they continue to grow their police-state power and enrich themselves on what's left of the carcass of the U.S.
They don't give a flying fuck that they're willfully acting as a viscious cancerous tumor eating what's left of the U.S.
Eventually things really will end up like Brave New World, or THX1178, or 1984 on fucking steroids, or The Hunger Games, Elysium, etc. etc. etc.
What about bad employees (and not just at a burger joint)? You have training costs, opportunity costs (they could be calling in sick, or you could've hired a different person), and you pay taxes/insurance on their behalf. Not all employees generate a profit for their business. It is a business risk.
There are many failed businesses out there, so the argument could be made that the employees ruined the capital of the business. So in this case your argument would ultimately be "that throughout history, labor has destroyed the capital of capitalists".
You put this same shit on another article.
+Publicus, You have an "objective theory of value" (or, more specifically, a "labor theory of value") the acceptance of which requires ignoring one of the most empirically verifiable realities in all history. That "capitalism" and free markets have lifted more people out of poverty in the last 200 years, than any time in human history and practically eliminated true material poverty over the last 50. The last holdouts of true poverty are, for the most parts, places where your ideas still reign.
Yes. I think you are truly evil. It's you that hates workers and the poor, because your point of view, when put into action, repeatedly leads to lower standards of living, suffering, material poverty, and in many cases, mass death.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0nsKBx77EQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ttbj6LAu0A
WRONG! Employees productive value would not exist without the infrastructure (machinery, plant, power, etc) and raw materials provided by the capitalist. The value of the employees labor is but a percentage of the overall cost of the final product. Profit is the difference between the cost of production and the voluntary price paid by the purchaser based on the perceived value of that product.
Only in very few cases (consultants, free lance writters, etc) does the employee add a significant value to the final product.
No shit? I thought people invested their life savings to start a business and work 80 hours a week with the goal of breaking even so that they can't pay their bills and end up homeless and begging for food while their employees get a regular paycheck.
"if they raise that shit to $50 and Hour I am going to get me a part time job and put some dumb ass on unemployment."
Never get that high. They go out of business well before wages get above $18 or so (excluding soaring wage inflation). I think we'll see fast food switch to automation. Resturants will be reduced to two or three workers per shift. Kiosks for the cashiers and robots for the burger flipper. There will be a manager (aka jack of many skills) and one or two workers to control the machines, and hand over meals to the customers. Fast food resturants will be displaced by owner operators (ie family owned resturants, Delis). The Owners themselves will be providing most of the labor.
The meat in most fast food burgers is already very mysterious. The following story is from two years ago. Mmmmmm Mmmmmmmm!!!
Study - Your fast food hamburger may contain as little as 2 percent actual meat
http://www.naturalnews.com/041116_hamburgers_fast_food_meat_content.html
Wifey was out on errands. I text her to pick up some hamburger and I will grill. She brings home this "hamburger" from Target. I cook it up and this shit just doesn't look right. Kids ate it and none of them died but I told her to never buy any meat products from Target. And she wonders why the local butcher shop is always packed with people. Butcher shops were all but extinct but we have 2 in town now. $15 to $20 min wage for burger flippers and you will see even more butcher shops.
Factory meat is what's for dinner at most big box grocers. They don't want to pay for a real meat department with butchers.
I stick with a local independent grocer that actually employs plenty of people to wait on their customers and has high quality food for purchasing meat. Might do better to buy a quarter steer, but I worry there would be more waste.
Yep, I've read where people are buying whole cows, having them butchered by the local butcher, and then putting the meat in the freezer - so they know where the meat comes from. SMART.
I have to say, this is one area where Latinos seem to be way ahead of the typical Americano, with their carnicerías you see in their n'hoods.
"She brings home this "hamburger" from Target. "
Never eat Hamburger anymore. Buy Steaks instead. They can't add filler to Steaks, but even these can be loaded with growth hormons and antibiotics. Hamburge meat does taste the same in even up-scale grocery stores. I don't know what they are serving in ground beef, but is sure isn't 100% beef!
I've cut my beef consumption to about once or twice of month to avoid potential health issues with contaminated beef (hormones, antibiotics, etc). I completely stopped consuming Fish & seafood entirely due to heavy metal toxins.
Wendy's Explains What Happens When Fry Cooks Make $15/HourUseless employees get fired from the sounds of it. Hopefully next the CEO's start getting paid $15/hr too, cause they are not worth it.
This is what you call "I'm a fucking lazy writer" article. These shit bottom of the barrel companies used to pay working poor wages and the government is forced to subsadize thes working poor through various government aid programs. Ohhhh, but that type of socialism is ok. Crossed the line when these scum companies are forced to pay their way though.
You've got to be some kind ot backwards fucking idiot to believe this stupid propaganda.
you lost me at "...and the government is forced..." the government has a monopoly on force (that is why it is called a government as opposed to a gang) who exactly do you think is "forcing" the government? FSA? who's backwards?
For an employer, $15 an hour isn't that bad if you didn't have to pay half the employee's
SS tax and workman's comp and put up with their frequent smoke and bathroom breaks.
When all that is figured in the employer is actually paying $25+ per hour and no illiterate
burger flipper is worth that.
Never mind burger flippers, up in the Alberta oil sands, $120K/yr truck drivers ($200K including housing, benefits, etc.) are being replaced by robotic trucks, just like in the movie Avatar. Surprised it took this long for the technology to drive a 3-story high dump truck at 5 mph on a fixed roadway. As for the unemployed truck drivers, good luck finding a job back in civilization that pays 1/3 as much.
This discussion needs to be turned 180 degrees in order to pull the real culprit out of the gunny sack. Instead of asking why can't wages increase we should be asking why do wages have to increase.
End the Fed
ALL wealth originates from digging, drilling or planting. The more of this a country does, and the more efficiently it does so, the better off its inhabitants.
Sure you can "make up" a fairy tale minimum wage number-but the real number will flow mathematically from the sums of those three activities listed above.
Henry Ford's discussions of how he derived his wages of $5.00/d at the River Rouge plant are worthy of review.
In almost all comments about this subject of pay for workers, seldom does anyone speak of the morality and social responsibility of small business owners and leaders of corporations taking an unreasonable share of the profits made to the exclusion of paying the workers who actually produce the goods/services that create the revenue.
Just because these business owners and corporate upper echelon officers provide the capital to produce goods and services doesn't mean a thing without the labor to make the goods and/or provide the services.
The ego of these people is a sickness as they fall into the trap of thinking they are better than other people of lesser means. To some of us the accumulation of money is not the end all and be all of life. To us, the EXPERIENCE of doing many things and becoming more COMPETENT in many tasks is the true purpose of being a human. The end product of that is to SHARE with others your KNOWLEDGE and ABILITIES so that they can also become KNOWLEDGEABLE and COMPETENT human beings in the various tasks we all have to do to live a productive and fulfilling life that enhances life on this planet.
This situation of PERSONAL GREED has become worse and worse since the 1980s when CEO salaries began to skyrocket as a percentage of the profits made.
What person on this planet is TRULY WORTH MILLIONS AND BILLIONS of dollars?
What do they owe to the society that allows them to even create a business?
This scenario has been repeated over and over again throughout history and these people ALWAYS DESTROY the society in which they reside.
End the end, if you had all the money in the world, what could you buy or possess that would make you satisfied?
How would you protect yourself from all the people from whom you took THEIR SHARE of any profits made?
Could you pay your protectors enough to keep them from just taking what you have and killing you?
What more do you really need beyond filling your belly each day and having a safe place to sleep each night?
These are things for the ultra rich to think about before they die and others take their accumulated wealth and piss it away on frivolities.
http://goldtradercommentsaugust2010.blogspot.com/
It's interesting how the blame is put on the CEOs by some people (I'm looking at you JC-BI). They run a business that feeds millions every day, employs thousands of people so they can pay their own bills, and makes customers happy. They ARE what your little "heart adjustment" article is about. They meet many of the key tenets and examples that are listed, such as, "Serve the clients/customers in your business by going the extra mile", "Cook dinner once in a while for someone who’s always busy", etc. In fact, I'm counting 7 of the 12 that you listed that people who run Wendy's do every day as part of their regular daily activity, and they may very well do the other items in their spare time. But you villify them. It's really bizarre - perhaps you should re-read your link.
So, we have this relationship where employee, customer, and employer have all made an agreement on how it works. One party pays X and receives Y. Everyone has agreed up front to this arrangement at Wendy's. No one is in the dark, no one is chained to the job, and every employee is freely able to move up into higher paying jobs or get a job elsewhere. Then the Government shows up - they do not care what the employee, employer, and customer have agreed to freely. They want to destroy that under the guise of helping one party while hurting AT LEAST two of the other parties, and likely all 3 parties. Perhaps you should send your little heart adjustment link to the government.
When fry cooks make $15/hour....sounds like the end of days are upon us. The dollar has hyperinflated. Kiss 'em goodbye, boys.
:)
Fry cooks produce more value for society than Wall Street billionaires.
Therefor fry cooks must make more than Wall Street billionaires. And they will.
Tue, 08/11/2015 - 12:22 | 6414156 PublicusVote up!
27 Vote down!-42
God bless Donald Trump and keep him and his family safe from harm.
In adjusted dollar terms fry cooks in the 1970's made 15 dollars a fucking hour and burger places seemed to function. The product was a hell of a lot better then to. The issue is that these corporate cunts want to be the sole beneficiaries of the FED's inflationary policies. Labor costs are a relatively small part of your hamburger. The problem is if people were making the inflation adjusted minimum wage of the 70's the great rentier society of middle men and grifters would no longer be able to skim from honest business. If a fast food producer has to pay a living wage he can't also pay exorbitant commercial RE costs. Things would have to adjust and the ones who would ultimately be hurt are the rentiers whose RE holding would have to be marked to the new (old) market where employees were paid wages that afforded them a standard of living.
WHEN WAGES ARE FORCED TO ACCOUNT FOR REAL INFLATION EVERYONE BENEFITS EXCEPT THE RENTIERS!!!
Businesses could then purchase RE instead of leasing as property costs would become a smaller portion of their fixed coasts by necessity making the properties less desirable to the rentiers. Businesses would have more customers because people would have more disposable income. Who here doesn't get that fucking inflation is for the sole benefit of the rentier and asset class??? As the Housing Bubble/Bust showed relying on the market to make for evenual asset deflation is a dicey proposition (though I think we'll get there eventually). So in the mean time what are you going to do for the working person who's been getting raped for over 3 decades???
That's right. By saying that you'll be accused of supporting this-ism or that-ism, but it's the truth.
/
right on cue, the junkers
I was going to disagree but decided to look it up first. In 1970 unskilled labor was paid an average nationwide of $3.93 an hour
Adjusted for inflation that is $24.17 an hour.
A waitress in 1964 made $1.25 an hour or 5 silver quarters, today worth about $18.
A waitress in 1964 made $1.25 an hour or 5 silver quarters, today worth about $18.
Not quite, since US silver quarters were not 100% silver. A US silver quarter contains about $2.30 of silver (@ $15.20/ounce), so $1.25\hr in US Silver quarters is about $12/hr.
Sounds like we should bump up CEO salaries. That will solve the "minimum wage issue".
I never go through the automated checkout, but that's just me.
I never use 'em either.
Was in Target (Canada - no more!) woman came over to me in the check-out line and suggested I use the auto.
I politely pointed out that I was trying to keep a human being in employment and a couple of minutes of my time was worth it.
When all jobs are replaced by robots, who will have money to buy what they produce?
It's the unproductive sods that need sorting out - you know, politicians, bankers, bureaucrats.
I have no problem working for what I get, I just object to most of my efforts being stolen through taxation and inflation.
If half what you earn wasn't stolen you could live on a 20 hour week and likely everyone would do something to earn a living.
I've no time for freeloaders, however.
A merchant not directly involved in production of goods is a freeloader feeding himself by servicing inefficiencies in the distribution system.
When I buy goods at a grocery store I don't buy them from the store. I re-purchase them from someone else who bought them from the producer, a wholesale distributor, a speculator, a branding facility or someone else. A paycheque of at least a hundred people is baked into the pricetag.
Instead of going for the human cashier worrying about his job, I prefer driving to the farmer and buying from him directly. His job is the one that actually matters.
Where's the beef? No really, there is no beef patty in my burger.
Well, we were forced to pay our chefs $20/hr so....
If you go into a fast-food 'restaurant' and expect quality food, I think you are missing something.
Absolute DESPERATION is the only good reason to enter such an establishment.
I eat at Chipolte every Wednesday.
$1 more per customer is what is costs to pay these people an honest wage.
Here we are, 7 years have gone by since Lehman and still not a single fry cook is in jail
$1 more per customer? Where is the documentation for that claim? Just sayin...
It's more like if minimum wage rises, employers/companies will respond to that increase in costs to maintain their viability and profit margins and bet you dollars to donuts it won't be to maintain the pre wage increase mandate price/employment status quo. Sorry to break any progressive liberal democraps illusions with their gubmint imposed bullshit policies on everyone else but it's about time the progressive liberal democraps come out of their bizarro world reality and wake up to the real consequences their bullshit policies have on tax paying hard working U.S. Citizens... however, fat fukn chance that will happen... fat fukn chance..
From a long time ago when i managed a restaurant, labor costs were about 20-30%. Ergo increasing rates by 40% would result in a 8-12% cost increase. Everything being equal a $8 average check in a fast food rest would go to $9.00.
Now the planners will say you can afford that, but they are elitist lefties with good jobs. To middle class america this hurts. We eat out more because with both me an hubby working there is just not that much time to cook all the time. We try, but s**t happens.
There is no such thing anymore as a high paying punch the clock job anymore. Both me an hubby put in lots of hours and often work late so we are not out sourced.
That's a weak statistic. Locations vary a lot. Some well-placed stores will makes loads of money, while other remote locations along a highway would get creamed. Many of those locations barely hold on. And the model isn't such that one will absorb the other's losses. Those stores will just close.
I don't know if that is true, but it could be. Think about the number of customers passing through each day X the number of employees per shift. If $1 is the correct increase per customer per meal, who gives a shit?
I do not agree with a 15$ minimum but TPTB have brought this on them selves by not increasing the minimum on a regular basis in small increments. Now they are being forced to almost double it.
Also, if the cost of fast food increases and people eat less of it, how is that bad for society? I am not taking about "sin taxes" and controlling people's behavior through price. I am just pointing out that less of this "food" being consumed would not be a bad thing for our society.
So for the down voters to the above post: why would a 1$ increase per meal be such a bad thing? And don't start name calling and shit. Give a real argument as to why a 1$ increase would be so bad.
I'm not sure why $15 an hour was decided on as the target. But from my calculations about $11.60 is what we would need for a single worker with no dependents to work the new normal 29 hour week and NOT qualify for government bennies.
So, $11.60, maybe hard on some small businesses, but would stop some of the government subisdization of larger businesses. Of course workers with less hours/more dependents would still get subsidized.
"Who gives a shit?" you ask.
I earned 95 cents an hour in 1967 flipping burgers. Now with ZIRP my income is very low. So yes I care about the price of fast food. It comes out of the savings I earned long ago.
The prices we all pay are related to when we walk out and refuse to pay the latest price increase. I suspect few people walk out these days. They just put up with whatever is placed in front of us. That's why we call them sheeple. They say things like - "I'm not voting. It won't make a difference" and "Sure, Walmart has low prices but I can't shop there. The customers look funny." and "who gives a shit?"
How about just stop debasing the currency?
But where can an honest, trustworthy employee working fast food be found?
slightlyskeptical ---- yours is the most insipid inane absurdly ridiculous drivel i have seen on this sight. try the huffington post and cnbc
If you want to run your business into the ground, listen to the central planners and socialist engineers. They believe they can divine the price of anything. It never ceases to amaze me how these idiots manage to go through life without ever learning a thing.
They did learn something....very valuable too....how to suck on the .gov teet.
Admittedly there are problems associated with wage rises particularly when they are quite substantial and sudden.
However it is also problematic that in the US, that the government subsidises low paid workers and othes with food stamps. This subsidy is not just to the individual but also to the corporation.
In fact what would happen if there were no food stamps?
My guess is that both employers and individuals would have to confront and then negotiate a new outcome.
Perhaps this whole debate about low rates of pay would not have been an issue if the US had not exported its well paying manufacturing jobs overseas. In that case the level of affluence in the community would not have seen the pressure on margins and costs encountered by not only big corporations but also small businesses.
At the end of the day it is also an issue about how an economy and society wishes to see the cake shared between capital and labour.
Not an easy topic and not one that can be solved in its totality particularly in an age where automation is making huge inroads.
If there were no food stamps, then 30+% of all employees paychecks wouldn't be stolen to pay for those programs so there wouldn't be a need to raise them to $15/hour in the first place.
^^^^^ This
+1000
I understand the sentiment but if food stamps are stealing 30% of your paypacket then I humbly suggest that the US governments costs of running wars and Homeland Security is stealing 130% of your paypacket.
No ... social programs and safety nets account for 59% of the US budget. Defense and security (including veteran's benefits) account for only 29%.
About 40% of the federal budget goes toward social security and medicare.
19% for medicaid, CHIP, SNAP, EITC, SSI, housing assistance, childcare assistance, etc.
So if all the safety net programs for working age adults and children were cut your tax bill might be reduced by 6%.
But we all know that will never happen. The 6% would just be reallocated to security/law enforcement/prisons etc. and the general misery level would increase as the most impoverished group of Americans are children under age 18 at 22% vs. less than 10% of those over 65.
well, the peak purchasing power for the min wage was in 1968 or so. Things were going okay then. Wonder why? Maybe it's because the smart people could actually create wealth. Now, starvation wages wouldn't create wealth.
Wealth creation hasn't ceased, the theft of the wealth, from those who actually produce something of value, is what's changed.
Starvation wages could only produce wealth for those paying them, not those earning them.
Someone the other day was lamenting how today's youth were lazy. So they went on to describe how they made $2.68/hr in 1970 packing pickle jars to pay for college. I did some back of the envelope math on the real value of $2.68/hr when we were still on the gold standard @ $35/ounce gold. Turns out he was able to earn one ounce of gold for every 13.25 hours worked. which is roughly 3.02 ounces of gold per 40hour week. Translated to today's $1100 ounce gold market, he was making $3300/wk, which is more than $13k/month.
Maybe the reason people are "lazy" is because they don't think wages are a fair trade for their time/labor. Granted, this fellow was groslly overpaid and was failing to connect the dots in regard to wage incentive/ willingness to work. Obviously, they were higher 40 years ago then they are today.
i was amazed too at how much the pickle packer was making. that was some decent bread back then
Original poster said $2.64/hr. $35/2.64 = 3.02. The rest of the math follows correctly.
I just had a typo @ 2.68.
Communist Russian saying: "We pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us."
Your logic that some create value doesn't compute. Without all the debt, let's see who creates "value?"
I am retireded and keep house for my working wife, 24/7/365. I get at most one blow job a week. Can somebody who is attuned to the service market tell me what my hourly wage is?
Hard to calculate without knowing the average duration, and other variables.
"I get at most one blow job a week."
Double the average wage. You be doing just fine.
Time for a joke:
What is the difference between your wife and your job?
Your job still sucks after five years.
Buddy, if your wife is giving out but one hummer per week, she ain't working THAT hard.
Worst case, 0.00595 blows job an hour.
is it more like a crack whore BJ or low rent escort BJ?
Not a good benchmark for anyone who's tried neither.
I get blow jobs on request, free, if you can call Married being 'free'. Hell of a price to pay for on tap BJs
Years ago we ate at Wendy's and Mom contracted Hepatitis and nearly died! I remember watching her stagger out of our vehicle, fall in the front yard and puke all over the place. I was like 8 years old, and I still remember it.
Fuck Wendy's and all of their un-washed hands after soiling themselves!
SH
Sounds like my only trip to Red Lobster.
Just ate at a Wendy's today, first time in years. Crap tasting burger, just like McD's and BK. I'll stay home.
It's hard to do quality control from Heaven! Sorry Super Hans!
You were still alive at the time Dave. Please list your next of kin so that I can force feed all of them feces laden burgers from your 2nd rate chain.
Best,
SH
Must've been your sunny disposition that inspired their culinary prowess.
.... same thing happened to my brother in laws boss a while back at a fancy shmancy restaurant in Boston, only he died.... can happen any where...
when paying execs the sky is the limit and there is no down side to society but give a fry cook a raise and omg shit's going to hell in a hand basket /s
Somewhat conflicted wording within the /s tag, but no matter as "shit's going to hell in a hand basket" is accurate, and simply so, as forces from all angles are competing for what is no longer there.
Amen, Buzz, the price of hamburger has doubled in two years. Do you hear a peep out of any of these burger barons? No way, but let some employees want a living wage and they start clutching their pearls and head to the fainting couch with their hair on fire! Go figure.
End the Fed. The problem solves itself from there.
Get rid of fiat - let's have real money with little or no inflation.
Make government a service - just keeping ducks in a row - if that's all they did I think most would back them.
Common Law, none of the lawyer scam.
Outlaw usury.
Welcome to a planet worth living on.
Oh, SHIT, I just woke up!
"will slightly likely look at the opportunity to reduce overall staff, look at the opportunity to certainly reduce hours and any other cost reduction opportunities"
leaving your owners and managers to flip the beef and parlay all the profits(cough) back to your salary and bonuses?
“I went down to the river,
I set down on the bank.
I tried to think but couldn't,
So I jumped in and sank.”
They could sell "Soylent Green w/cheese" sammich's on the cheap.
I want mine with bacon! Can I pay with 90% junk silver?
Sure, face value.
I'm constantly seeing this "pass the cost on to the consumers" meme.
When are we going to wake up and realize it's the owners that need to cut down their peice of the pie?
These franchisees pay outrageous amounts of money to use the Wendy's name, everything from straight out millions for the name to getting gouged on supplies for daily operation.
THIS IS THE MONEY THAT SHOULD GO TO THE WORKER'S AND CONSUMERS!
THIS MONEY SHOULD NOT GO TO THE CEO, NOT THE BOARD MEMBERS, NOT THE LAWYERS, NOT THE. 0001% OWNERS!
Hey commie toad;
Why don't you start your own franchised business and build it up until you have 1,000 or more franchises out there. Then get back to me when someone wants to complain why you should make so much money after all your hard work and effort.
Would you begrudge the lottery winner for winning $50 million dollars? Yeah, I thought not.
Nobody has ever built a 100+ franchise business. The corporations/lawyers/board members take over within the first 10 or so...
"Owners need to cutdown on the piece of the pie".
Hmmmm.......
Fast food is what, as 3-5% margin business.
Do you, young toady, know how to use a calculator?
Just sayin.
Squid
Your thinking franchisee, the guy who buys a Wendy's or two. You want to know why his margins are so thin? Because every time he gets a little ahead the CEO and board members back at corporate figure out another way to gouge some more money out of him.
My brother-in-law owns 3 franchise chicken shacks. He thought the money would roll in. It didn't. They bleed him dry.
Example: He has to buy their napkins with their logo stamped on it. It cost 3 times as much as napkins he could buy from a wholesaler who sells to mom and pops and stamps their logo on it. He must buy everything from them. He has no choice.
After 6 years, he's trying to sell it.
Pigtails make it easier to face fuck someone
Ewww. WTF?
I remember enjoying Taco Bell about the same time MTV came on the scene years ago; I just tried Taco Bell for the first time in like 20 years!; I spent 10$ and threw all of it out after one bite. I was heartbroken.
SH
similar experience
Me too! I loved those Burrito Supremes when I was a kid. No beans, extra cheese and sour cream.
First, they wouldn't let me "have it my way", then when I got it they forgot the supreme part. It was just a shitty little burrito.
I'm not going back.
I gave up mcdonalds 30 years ago. For some stupid reason I thought that 30 years was long enough and that 30 years of abstaining from a big mac was enough punishment for them.
I bought the big mac, I ate the big mac, I drove home to the sound of my stomach wrenching. I got in the house and shit my brains out. Done.
Your first mistake was going to Taco Bell. Taco John's is much better, and their Potato Ole's aren't bad.
Still, everyone wants to bash fast food chains. Truth is, when you work in the field, sometimes you don't have a choice. Sure, near Chicago you can get a nice greasy Italian Beef sandwich or a Vienna Beef hot dog with built-in french fries, but soon, I would bet that everyone will be begging to get some kind of calories in them each day. So, stop complaining.
I'd much rather eat "real" food with beef, cheese, and bread, then anything that comes from that "organic" mountain of crap called California, what with their weird affinity for tofu and such.
I wish there were more Taco Johns. Get to know the owner and staff and they'll make everything Tacoriffic, like the Russellville, AR location. If you visit there, tell Jumpin' Jerome I sent ya'. Also high-fives to their Sioux City location. LOTS of cheese on the tacos, and the meat is way better than Taco Hell. Ironically, the most disappointing locations are in Cheyenne where their HQ is. You're just a number and it's a "Meh!" attitude, although the food is still good.
You can tell these wage activists all day long about how they are going to hurt the people they're trying to help. They'll make you look bad for being an obstacle to their good intentions. And love every minute of it.
Then, they'll eventually have their way, and it will fall out bad like you said, and they'll blame you for it. And love every minute of it.
They are evil people, really, this is Alinskyism. If the solution doesn't work, that's not a bug that's a feature, for it's now a bigger cudgel to work with.
The key phrase here is "good intentions," as that is their only standard of measure. Poor results, if even acknowledged, are always blamed on externalities currently outside of their control.
If only they had little more power in order to get things under control...
the execs care soo much about the franchises but not enough to take a pay cut to lower prices. what a bunch of bullshit.
Yeah, sure, whatever.
Tell you what, when Union electricians aren't $125/hr or a Union plumber doesn't cost over $100 bucks an hour, then get back to me. Unions are part of the reason that costs went insane and drove manufacturing out of the USA. Unions and their Democratic Party thugs and politicans are what has destroyed every major US city. So, get back to me when you've demanded that the union bosses cut their salaries to $0.
(Don't forget that when you, as a small business owner, have a booth at the upcoming trade show...don't you dare plug in your own equipment. In fact, make sure you call some union idiot to plug your computer in, for you).
Ah, the classic "fight amongst yourselves". Never mind that corporation behind the curtains counting ALL the money.
I've got an idea. Lets just pay EVERYONE $3.50 and hour and quit the whining.
Another question to ponder. What effect would a 15 dollar/hour minimum wage have on illegal immigration?
I think we know the answer!
i wonder how much in stock options the fry cooks get?
Anyone can own stocks. And choosing a place to work is still a choice. Or would you rather Communism, where your profession is chosen for you (if you get to live)?
maggot fascism is what we have now
All explained right here
http://govtslaves.info/wendys-to-switch-to-self-ordering-and-automation-...
"There are some people out there who naively say that these wages can simply be passed along in terms of price increases."
Well if wages can't be passed along...then neither can taxes.
Well, that was until ObamaCare came along.
p.s., The SCOTUS says it's a tax.
(holding nose)
WEN made $121 million last year.
Excluding stock based compensation, and most likely other benefits unavailable to the $15/hr folks:
Mr. Emil J. Brolick , 67
Chief Exec. Officer, Pres, Director, Member of Exec. Committee and Member of Capital & Investment Committee 2.66M ($1279/hr)
Mr. Todd Allan Penegor , 49 ($514/hr)
Chief Financial Officer of International and Exec. VP 1.07M
Mr. Robert D. Wright , 47
Chief Operating Officer and Exec. VP 900.00K ($433/hr)
But these guys won't feel the $15/hr pinch because it will be the franchisees that will have to pay it.
Maybe they should fold up the company or hand it over to someone who won't bitch about the productive people making enough to live on.
... and don't get me started on the JP Morgan clowns.
Wah. Another commie comment.
Get back to me when you've built up your own business into a success. I'll bet you wouldn't knock the lottery winner when he wins $10 million dollars, would you?
Anyone can own stocks. So if the company does well, then so do you (as an owner). Quit bitching about it.
What is this, Eat the Rich day? All you commies can go straight to hell.
Sorry, you didn't get the memo on Hell:
Eccl. 9:5: “The living are conscious that they will die; but as for the dead, they are conscious of nothing at all.”
'
The Real Change In The Cost Of A Big Mac If McDonald's Workers Were Paid $15 An Hour: Nothing'"............The capitalists charge the absolute maximum they can get away with, that ability being limited by the competition that comes from alternative suppliers.
Thus the price is not determined by the cost of production of an item. Which means that, if we raise McDonald’s production costs by increasing the wages of the workers, the price isn’t going to change. For it’s not production costs that determine prices: it’s competition that does. Another way to put this is that McDonald’s is already charging us the absolute maximum that it can for its current level of sales. Thus it cannot raise its prices if its production costs go up.
All of which means that the real change in the cost of a Big Mac, or the dollar menu, if McDonald’s workers were paid $15 an hour is: nothing. For production costs simply do not determine the prices that can be achieved in a competitive market."
.
Man, that's a great forum name.
I am not familiar with Wendy's franchise system in particular. But it is often the case that a successful franchise, is artificially expensive in many ways, before labor costs figure in. A lot of forced buying through the franchise system, at inflated costs. Forced conformity at inflated costs. Having to support items that do not sell well in your location. Of course much of the conformity reinforces the franchise value overall. But the forced purchasing systems are a gravy train for some.
Was any of that mentioned in the call? "Hey guys. Instead of overcharging our operators in multiple ways. Thereby ensuring they can't pay decent wages, while we rake it in." " How about we just at least hold to the current excessive profit margin, while they catch up."
Not that long ago. Companies that kept a steady profit margin, considered themselves stable. Now the expectation is quarterly increase in profits, or you are a failure. Of course quarterly increases in wages are a ridiculous concept.
Why are there not self service kiosks everywhere. Who wants to take to the idiot at the drive thru or counter who gets your order wrong in the first place. Sure you can pay $15 per hour if you get rid of the idiots who work at fast food...oh wait.
I visited Amarillo today. Mickey Dees is already testing that market with two others and each of their restaurants in those regions have Self Service kiosks. For now, at least one employee explains how it works and gives out booklets. They told me even the only Golden Arches in the Oklahoma Panhandle has a kiosk, in a town of just under 13,000.
Why Amarillo? It's in the heart of Beef Country. McDonalds is the top beef buyer in the nation, so they want to see if this works in the region. You can do the whole process automatically if you use the Arch Card, but the fucking thing requires $25 to recharge it. Why not 20? So retarded IMAO.
If fry cooks are worth a 50+% raise to $15/hour, what is my 20 years of experience as a structural engineer worth?
The skys the limit if you're willing to put yourself out of business like fast food workers. They can be replaced with robots. You can't. At the present time that is.
The painful irony to that? The Black Boxes of Wall Street. There's no market any longer as long as the algorhythms can synch up, and take a look at Chicago! You no longer have a vibrant trading floor, thanks to the degree of automation they utilize.
I have to admit it's incredible beauty when a Black Box system fucks up and incredible flash crashes take place. Max Keiser noted sometime back on his report how the Big Fish rent space as close as possible to the Market so their trades can be executed a few milliseconds faster than the Herd. Physics, ya know!
Now to replace scummy bank$ters with robots incapable of arming themselves or outthinking their human counterparts, and perhaps Heaven can someday return to this fucking cold blue orb.
Do you really think CEO's are worth what they make? That's the problem with you short-sighted people, you always want to look down at what's below you. Look up for the people who are screwing you, CEO's, CFO's, HR execs, etc. The top 5 at the typical US corp takes 10% of the profits! These are the people who are fucking you, screw them back and form a union.
Sorry, but your job was outsourced this morning to a Chinese engineer.
You all do realize this is a Bloomberg conspiracy, right?
All the fast foods will go out of business, leaving us no choice but to eat healthier. LMAO.
And, if that's not the case, then why not a monthly supply of FREE BURGER vouchers from the US gov't direct to your mailbox!
Yesterday I went to Long JOhn Silvers. Got a combo platter, 2 extra pieces of chkn and a large drink. Almost $13.00. NOt only that, the combo has 1 less peice of fish than it used to have and the coleslaw cup was only half full. Now my dogs are starving because I ordered the extra stuff for them and I was forced to eat it. Not to mention I probably got fukishamaded!!!!!
The ONLY reason I went there was because I had my dogs with me. There's plenty of places in town I can go into and have a sit-down meal for less than $13 and i'm not talking about the worthless mcdonalds discount burger outlets.
Fast Food service isn't a career choice.... It's temp jobs for teenagers and old ladies. Get a real job.
I am disappointed with ZH's take on this item. A recent survey has concluded that a $15 minimum wage would increase the cost of meals by 5%. That means a $4.00 hamburger will now cost $4.20. Will that drive away customers? Only if competing outlets keep the price at $4 and find other ways to cut costs. No one mentions that the new minimum wage will increase the buying power of the employees, increase their consumption expenditures and expand other businesses. It will also reduce governmental expenditure for food stamps, medicaid and subsidized housing.