So, they have to charge more ... is money your god? Aren't the employees deserving of a decent wage? Could you live on $7.50 an hour? Easier to live on welfare and food stamps than work for $7.50 ... of course many are probably on food stamps ... unless they were taken out of the system in the House Republican Agriculture Bill.
Like Aaron, my first job was bucking bales before my freshman year of high school. I ran a hay crew around my small hometown in north Missouri every summer for three years after that. There was no way I could make a living doing that. It was supposed to put some money away for college for me, but I got a baseball scholarship at a Division II school and wound up buying my first new car with my savings. I was blessed in that manner, as there is no way a high school student today can "make a living" at McDonald's or any other fast food franchise. That's isn't a big surprise to anyone except, it appears, to you.
The jobs aren't there to "make a living." They are a great way, however, for high school and college students to transition from adolescence to adulthood. They can save money for college, pay a bit to their parents perhaps, for allowing them to remain at home after high school. They learn responsibility, budgeting, and how to take care of themselves. The people "striking" the other day (I don't think anyone at their restaurants missed them while they were making a ridiculous spectacle of themselves) are adults who don't seem to understand the economy of their own employer, nor do they seem to understand they are past the age of employment in the industry, though if they keep at it, they may transition back into that employment category as they approach retirement age. Seems fast food also provides a decent supplementary income for those on SS.
One of the men interviewed in Kansas City -- one of the seven cities where McDonald's employees "went on strike" -- was in his 30s. His complaint that he couldn't support himself on those wages was aired across the metro area. I don't know how many people I heard comment that "of course he couldn't, and he shouldn't be trying. He should have stopped being a 'kid' a long time ago."
No one expects fast food to be a career, not unless one becomes management or buys a franchise. Everyone knows that -- why don't you?
I know there are other low-paying jobs in the world, jobs where men and women are trying to make ends meet with very little string to stretch that far. However, the great thing about this country -- the thing that always has been true, and continues to be true despite liberal lies to the contrary -- that
anyone can be
anything they want to be. Certainly it requires heart, determination, drive, ambition, and those double dirty four letter words many despise:
hard work. They should try it sometime. They might be surprised.
Unfortunately, the liberal drum beat of "fairness" (which actually means "unfairness" where it is expected that someone gets something for nothing) and "equality" (which actually means "inequality" where it is expected someone will be chosen not for talent and ability but ethnicity and economic status) has convinced the myriad of young men and women, who could follow the footsteps out millions of Americans previously able to work their way out of poverty, that it isn't possible without a lowering of the bar.
This attitude is the problem, not the wages paid in this country.
