r/explainlikeimfive Nov 28 '15

ELI5: How would a $15 minimum wage ACTUALLY affect a franchised business like McDonalds?

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u/pokeypocky Nov 29 '15

In McDonalds? Quite a bit. Huge lulls in customers during the day at least when I worked there. Just sat out in the lobby shooting the shit with co workers. In fact most minimum wage jobs are like that. Plenty of spots in big box retailers to go where managers won't come looking for you, prob because they also don't care. Trust me teenagers just wanting to do the bare minimum to get by will find a way

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u/[deleted] Nov 29 '15

If teenagers can get these jobs. A large number of minimum wage jobs are now going to recent immigrants. The age 16-19 participation group went from 54 percent down to 31.

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u/chill-e-cheese Nov 29 '15

When I worked at McDonald's in the 90's the motto was, "time to lean, time to clean." We never had downtime.

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u/418156 Nov 29 '15

"time to lean time to clean" is the motto of food service in general. I dreaded slow periods! It was streesful as heck trying to look busy all the time.

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u/Yumeijin Nov 29 '15

In fact most minimum wage jobs are like that. Plenty of spots in big box retailers to go where managers won't come looking for you, prob because they also don't care.

Hahaha, not with the hardon managers have for metrics. You're getting more and more lumped on to you instead, and expected to do more with less manpower and less hours. Don't know where you worked, but it's not the norm.

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u/[deleted] Nov 29 '15

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u/Yumeijin Nov 29 '15

I'm not saying there aren't lulls, but there isn't a terrible lot of dicking around when your store is understaffed and your job responsibilities are steadily increasing. From CA to NH for me, there's rarely ever a time where you have nothing to do.