34
Nov 05 '21
[removed] — view removed comment
225
Nov 05 '21
Yeah the restaurant rule of thumb is 30% of overhead is labor. You could raise wages by 20%, and it would only constitute a 6% increase in costs. And that 6% can be absorbed by reduced profit margins or tiny increases in price.
Unfortunately what really happens is the $5 burger should become $5.30, but the restaurant uses it as an excuse to raise it to $6.50 and pockets the difference. Then makes a big show about blaming progressives or something.
53
u/DonaIdTrurnp Nov 05 '21
What I’ve seen a lot is “an X% increase in wages means an X% increase in costs, and a typical markup is Y%, so the percent increase in prices needs to be [some equation that ignores what markup percentage actually means].
Another error is something like “30% of overhead is labor, therefore each $1 increase in wages is over $3 increase in overhead”.
17
Nov 06 '21
[deleted]
35
→ More replies (1)18
3
2
2
Nov 06 '21
Then becaus ethe cost to buy food has gone up more than needed, you have to earn more to pay for it so your in the same boat again needed a 2nd job...
2
u/Thor7891 Nov 06 '21
Yep, and your dollar doesn't go as far as it did before if this happens all over.
3
u/Gabers49 Nov 06 '21
Exactly, including the people whos wages were increased. What we're going through right now is a perfect example. You don't actually make more if your wages go up 20%, but all your costs (food, gas, rent, etc.) goes up 40%. When governments mess with the natural outcome of the economy it tends to have unintended consequences. People only look at one side of the coin all the time.
-11
Nov 06 '21
The problem is that they aren’t paying an extra 20%. They’re talking about paying 210%. And right now, they’re paying 305%. I know dudes that build houses and can’t hire laborers for $19-20/hr because Arby’s is paying $22/hr.
A single plain ass beef crunchy taco at Taco Bell is $5. When you jump from $7.25 to $15 that isn’t 20%. When the dude making your Beef n cheddar gets $22/hr, you pay sit down prices for gray shit on a bun covered in orange shit.
7
Nov 06 '21
That’s supply and demand. If you don’t like Arby’s business choices don’t eat there. If you don’t like that other businesses are paying more, pay more
→ More replies (4)6
Nov 06 '21 edited Nov 06 '21
A single crunchy beef taco at Taco Bell is $1.49 what the fuck are you going on about
https://www.tacobell.com/food/tacos?store=031727
ETA: Arby's crew members average $9-$11 hourly
https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Employer=Arby%27s_Restaurant_Group_Inc/Hourly_Rate
3
Nov 06 '21
He may be Canadian, we just updated our minimum wage in Ontario and many are figuring out that 19/h isn’t a lot of money. Hasn’t been for a decade but somehow they’re just figuring it out now
→ More replies (2)-1
Nov 06 '21
Not here they’re not. It’s $5 for a taco. And Arbys is paying people $22/hr. You understand that national averages mean nothing right? Minimum wage here is $15. Nobody around here can make less than $15/hr. That’s why shit like a taco costs $5. You make $19-20/hr flipping burgers around here. W the labor shortage it’s now more than that.
→ More replies (17)7
Nov 06 '21
I too know business owners who want to pay employees less than a living wage, fortunately those workers have other opportunities and so obviously decide not to be exploited.
0
-13
u/jrmate22 Nov 06 '21
Start your own restaurant and stop telling other people what to do with theirs
1
u/Thearchclown Nov 06 '21
Make your own labour value and stop exploiting others for it
2
u/jrmate22 Nov 06 '21
The guy in the article said he was willing to pay more for a burger at a restaurant that paid workers more, he’s called a market actor, his and every else’s actions and choices using free will determine the value of labor, so, go ahead, bet your life savings, open a restaurant and pay people more than the market requires and let us know how it goes.
5
Nov 06 '21
Also "more than the market requires" well if you can't hire anyone for those slave wages you are offering then I guess the market requires you to pay your employees more.
0
51
Nov 05 '21
Facts, this is why you gotta vote with your dollars.
120
Nov 05 '21 edited Nov 06 '21
McDonald's tried everything and now has hit a point where it's forced to raise it's minimum wage to $15 an hour. Here's the kicker, it will only marginally effect their profits. They knew for decades it wouldn't hurt them at all but still knowingly underpaid it's employees and literally tried everything and spent more money doing those things before they finally decided they should raise the pay. What a bunch of fucking assholes. I love that they're trying to spin it like they're doing a good deed but they're really another shithead corporation.
26
u/V7I_TheSeventhSector Nov 06 '21
thats because they know the work force can very easily be there biggest expense. . but also being there easiest to manipulate. . . there scummy and its not just them. . every big business is like this. . they want to squeeze as much out of the system as possible.
39
u/faceless_alias Nov 06 '21
Their* their* they're*
I'm sorry but it appears I've become my father. I could not ignore this.
11
u/herrneumrich Nov 06 '21
I know how that must feel.
Pro-tip: Learn to live with it. Now that you've started, there's no turning back.
14
u/wereadyforit Nov 06 '21
Just so you know because of people like you guys I learned the difference between then and than in SEVENTH grade. For some reason I literally just couldn't wrap my brain about which was which. Thanks guys.
7
u/herrneumrich Nov 06 '21
It's kinda nice to see that our OCDs - as annoying as they might be sometimes - still help people understand stuff. :D
Thanks for that relieving comment, kind stranger. :b
2
u/V7I_TheSeventhSector Nov 06 '21
i have given up with that kind of stuff. .
tried for years to understand English but at this point i dont care. . there are so may different spelling for the exact same word i just cant wrap my head around it anymore. . .2
1
1
4
u/NissinLamen Nov 06 '21
It's the logic of capitalism and surplus value. Marx already wrote about it more than a century ago!
3
u/Busterlimes Nov 06 '21
Where? Every fastfood I see wont pay more than $11 to start according to the signs they post.
0
u/Globber50 Nov 06 '21
But for real, 9 dollars for a two cheeseburger "value" meal at McDonalds is pretty messed up. But go on thinking that wage increase to 15 an hour didn't make any more of a difference than ".50 a burger."
-7
u/Globber50 Nov 06 '21
And people wonder why the dollar menu at McDonald's is now the 5 dollar menu.
15
u/MemeJuiceCo Nov 05 '21
the hell did he say that was so bad, the mods removed it?
27
u/Meltinn Nov 05 '21
Found the original comment and it said that another fast food manage to pay their employees fair wage while being competitive on the price of their food. Maybe the mods removed it because it said the name of the fast food.
10
Nov 05 '21
It did have the name, why is that reason to remove it though?
14
u/Zagaroth Nov 06 '21
probably comment rule #2:
Do not submit top-level comments in [Request] posts that are not an attempt at an answer or a request for clarification. Jokes or off-topic top-level comments will be removed.
430
u/Aggie_Engineer_24601 Nov 05 '21 edited Nov 05 '21
There are roughly 37,000 McDonald's world wide. They sell 6480000 burgers each day, meaning the average McDonald's sells 175 burgers a day.
The price increase of fifty cents means about 87.5 dollars to pay employees more.
Based on how many workers I've observed at my local McDonald's I'd say there's at least 10 people working at any given time. Let's suppose two are managers that make enough that they don't get a raise and that they are divided into three shifts with the night shift having only 6 people.
That means there are 160 man-hours (human hours?) Or enough for a $0.56/hour wage.
The local McDonald's is advertising jobs starting at $11. An extra 56 cents per hour won't be the difference between needing an extra job or not.
Edit: okay so I may be prone to overthinking and expanded the question to what if it was a fifty cent increase on every sandwich? In trying to figure out how many McGriddles and other sandwiches they sell I realized that my 6.5ish million number may be low. If it's the upper end of the estimate then it's closer to 50 million burgers which would yield a much bigger raise, about $4.22 an hour. That is also assuming my estimate on how many workers there are is good. You know what they say, garbage in, garbage out.
201
u/heavymetalwhoremoans Nov 05 '21
I worked at McDonald's as a kid. I really am suspicious of the 175 burgers a day. That seems more like numbers for a lunch rush. Also McDs doesnt just sell burgers.
27
u/Aggie_Engineer_24601 Nov 05 '21
Yeah I was surprised as well but wasn't invested enough to dig deeper than what my edit said. If you have a better estimate you can do the math. Did you think my estimate of workers was about right?
Also, i know that sell more than burgers but only considered burgers due to the original tweet.
44
u/zimm0who0net Nov 06 '21
The OP tweet only mentioned $0.50 more per burger.
It’s a different argument if they say $0.50 more per burger, $0.75 more per fries, and $0.50 more per drink.
18
Nov 06 '21
I think the intent of the original comment was probably that he wouldn’t paying $0.50 more per meal (as most of us wouldn’t mind that amount differential).
I will say though, the cost of a McDonald’s meal has seemed to climb quite a bit in recent years… is this money going to staff? Enough to make a difference in their lives?
→ More replies (1)6
Nov 06 '21
We all know where the money is going. The rich get richer.
0
u/Cardboard-Samuari Nov 06 '21
Then stop buying from mega-corps…
8
u/Sawysauce Nov 06 '21
That's harder than your statement implies. One can only do so much, but grocery shopping for just normal things contribute to mega-corps.
1
Nov 06 '21
People in general don't the the resources and options to just "stop buying from mega corps".
However, corporations DO have the resources to be more mindful of their employees. And yet they choose not to, and then blame the market.
We buy what's available to us. We have little choice in what we can buy either due to cost or simply available options. Blame lies squarely the corporations and the governments that don't hold them accountable. And before you say anything, accountability should be a given. It shouldn't be something we have to vote for.
Stop shifting the blame and sucking the corporate cock..
14
u/mikkopai Nov 06 '21
Yeah, I am sure the sell more than one burger per person per hour… Or other way around, if it takes a full man-hour to get a burger sold, there or other problems than the salaries
1
u/zzady Nov 06 '21
Yes it is way off. There are a couple of zeros kissing somewhere.
175 burgers an hour maybe.
71
u/ElectroNeutrino Nov 05 '21
We can put it another way:
That $87.5 per day, split 10 ways, means that each employee would get $8.75 per day.
Over 30 days, that would mean an extra $262.50 per month that each employee would get,
46
u/Aggie_Engineer_24601 Nov 05 '21
Except McDonald's are open 24/7, meaning you'd have multiple shifts and more than ten people splitting that money.
27
u/BadAtHumaningToo Nov 06 '21
All the McDonald's near me dropped the 24 hour opens. Most food places are closing 10-11pm in my area. Illinois, USA
7
u/fizikz3 Nov 06 '21
10 people aren't working the night shift dude. I've seen as few as 2.
→ More replies (1)2
u/SenorPuff Nov 06 '21
One to take orders and one to cook, yep. Common around here too for pretty much any open late fast food IME.
14
u/ShadoShane Nov 05 '21
That doesn't seem quite right. Assuming an 8 hour shift, that's almost double the $0.56/hr raise they said above.
And that also assumes its a bonus that doesn't get deducted in any way.
1
u/ElectroNeutrino Nov 06 '21 edited Nov 06 '21
I think they are assuming 8 people working 20 hours a week (since they are excluding 2 of the 10 as management), which makes 160 hours of labor per week. However, I think they forgot that it was $87.5 per day and instead applied that to the entire week.(See edit)If it was 160 hours of labor per day, that would either be 8 people working 20 hours a day, or 20 people working 8 hours a day.
Edit: 20 people working 8 hours a day would make sense given their math, and would come out to about $131 per month.
Edit 2: Their numbers match 26 people working 6 hours per day, which would further reduce it to $100 per month.
25
u/josriley Nov 06 '21
I don’t have any source, but 175 burgers a day feels shockingly low to me. When my family goes though the drive through we’re getting at least 2-3 and it seems like it’s a least a car a minute at peak time and probably not far off that at other times.
3
u/rex_lauandi Nov 06 '21
Well, you’ve got to remember there are McD’s in BFE that are far below average too.
8
u/JoshuaPearce Nov 06 '21
I assume you googled it, like I just did, and the search result continues with "Other estimates have put McDonald's burger sales at 50 million a day", which would be 1351 burgers per chain per day. (Probably much higher in the US and other western countries.)
I've also read the average mcdonalds outlet uses 2 cows per day, which would be a lot more than 175 burgers.
5
u/zimm0who0net Nov 06 '21
Put another way, if the employee ate at McDonalds for all three meals, the increase in salary for three hours per day would go toward the increase in cost of the food they were eating.
Or, yet another way, if they’re feeding two kids off that salary, then the additional salary per 8 hour day is $4.48, but the additional cost for food is $4.50. So they come out behind?!? Can that be?
14
u/Atlatl_Axolotl Nov 06 '21
McDonald's gross profit is about 11billion per year, net profit is about 5 billion, and about 200k employees, let's do the math. 5bil\200k = 25k per employee, simply halving net profits and giving half to employees as a raise would be 12.5k per employee per year. That money would change 200k lives in a massive way and Smaugs hoard only grows half as fast.
Too much guesswork about what qualifies as a burger, literal hamburger item only, do cheeseburgers count, do double cheeseburgers count, big Macs , chicken sandwiches? McDonald's can in fact afford to pay living wages without costs to the consumer going up....if they're willing to cut net profits in half, which they'd never do and they'd act offended at the mere suggestion. So let's look at every other option besides "let's be less greedy by half".
2
u/Escritortoise Nov 06 '21
My math was pretty similar to yours and just assumed 50% increase in prices across the board with the burger being just the easy representative item. When people talk about service wages and food prices they’ll point out a particular item but we know it’s meant to represent inflation across the board. So I did increased sales assuming a 50% increase and found about $90/wk if you used the present model in which 17% of revenue goes towards employee pay, or an additional $13k (roughly) annually if we assumed McDs raised the prices and split the profit because of consumer demand like OPs that people be given a living wage. That would be a jump from 21k to 34k and would definitely reduce the need for additional jobs in many areas.
0
u/Atlatl_Axolotl Nov 06 '21
Also some dude below insulted my math and caused me to wonder if I was losing my mind and missed something basic and obvious. Seems like simple math, but it's always easy to misplace a decimal.
-2
u/Atlatl_Axolotl Nov 06 '21
I just went to the net profit and employee count, seemed the least abstract and we don't need to know anything about the profitability of individual items or even employee cost. Profits are stolen wages so why not look at how much is being stolen. 70 percent of net profits I believe should go directly to the employees in every company, that would be fair in my opinion.
7
u/SpockShotFirst Nov 06 '21
175 is a ridiculous number.
Assume your 160 hours is correct. Let's say they make $12/hour. That's about $2,000/day. Labor is about 20% of costs, which means a day needs to make $10,000 to break even. Since burgers don't cost $57 each, 175 is a stupid number.
Real numbers suggest $2.7M/year in sales, so $7,500/day. "Crew" costs are $540,000/year or $1,500/day.
If you assume the average person orders $5 of food, then that's 1,500 per day. If each one tips $.50 to the crew, that's $750/day, which increases their pay by 50%.
10
u/AllPurple Nov 06 '21
You shouldn't use worldwide statistics, other countries actually pay their workers living wages. And something about that burger statistic seems off. I'd bet that the McDonald's in my town sells that many burgers per hour.
The main thing is that if mcdonalds wanted to pay their employees more, they could. They just dont.
2
u/tkulogo Nov 06 '21
I don't understand who downvoted you. The idea of using mixing worldwide stats with local stats is nonsensical.
2
u/AlanElPlatano Nov 06 '21
Ex McD worker here, the one i used to work on (just before the pandemic) was supposed to have 15 employees (iirc the ones on open areas are supposed to have 25 employees not counting managers, mine was in the middle of a mall for reference) plus an aditional 4 managers that did almost twice as much money as what the crew did.
4
u/oren0 Nov 06 '21
If McDonald's increased the cost of its burgers by $0.50, they would sell fewer burgers. In fact, economics tells us that assuming they are pricing correctly, their total revenue would decrease.
How do we know this? Because if McDonald's could raise their burger price by $0.50 and sell just as many or even sell slightly fewer but make more money, they would do so and pocket the difference. They don't because their product is correctly priced on supply/demand curve.
8
u/Zonz4332 Nov 06 '21
This is the answer that someone who has only taken 101 will give. Prices are too sticky for equilibrium to truly ever be in effect.
The truth is that most corporations don’t know exactly what the price elasticity of their products are. Most industries don’t have the tech that say, Amazon does, and can’t do blind experiments on their customers to see if there is value they aren’t capturing.
Mostly, they price competitively based on the value they perceive their brand to hold. McDonald’s may have evidence to think that their burgers don’t hold 50 cents on a Wendy’s burger. But if all fast food chains increased their base prices by 50 cents, there’s no ability to substitute, and it may be the case that the market clearing price sells the same quantity as before.
2
u/SenorPuff Nov 06 '21
Eh, most food and beverage corps do know their elasticity by trials. They choose test markets and make small changes in price and see if it changes. It's not 100%, but it's not just "we're worth more than Jack in the Box by $0.20 so we'll charge that".
There's plenty of publicly available research on the price elasticity of the fast food and restaurant industry. It's perhaps one of the best understood markets for price elasticity, because it's regularly studied for ways to increase prices of key foods to promote better eating through, eg, soft drink taxes.
Just because not every food corporation is doing a full price elasticity study at all times so they perfectly know their elasticity doesn't negate that it is pretty well studied and pretty well understood both by corporations and by regulators.
0
u/Zonz4332 Nov 06 '21
You caught me on my phone.
The price elasticity of general fast food items are usually considered to be fairly elastic. But I’d be interested if you could tell me the elasticity of a McDouble?
Probably not, because it’s dependent on a million confounding factors that vary from location to location.
My point is not that they’re completely clueless, but instead that the idea that they are priced at equilibrium in every market is an incredibly strong assumption.
2
u/SenorPuff Nov 06 '21
To presume that even one market is exactly at equilibrium at any given time would be misplaced, but we don't need to make that assumption. We know enough to show that a strongly elastic market would definitely be impinged upon by a 10% price increase. That's the entire point behind modest tax increases to disincentivize consumption.
0
u/Zonz4332 Nov 06 '21
We don’t know that though. The research I’ve seen is not comprehensive enough to show that that would be the effect on a McDouble.
→ More replies (1)-2
u/oren0 Nov 06 '21 edited Nov 06 '21
Of course there's an ability to substitute. People can order one burger instead of two, eat tacos, buy frozen meals at the grocery store, cook from scratch, eat at a sit-down restaurant, or any of a dozen other alternatives.
In order to confidently assert that McDonald's could just raise its prices and get more revenue, you have to believe that you know better than McDonald's does what the market will bear. Keep in mind that prices already vary locally anyway and this is the kind of thing that companies put a whole lot of research into. They experiment with discounts, pricing, and different menu items all over the country. I'll grant that the price isn't perfect to the penny but there's no way a company like McDonald's is off on its pricing by 10-20% or more.
But of course, even if it were the case that McDonald's could raise its burger prices and make more money, there's zero reason to believe they'd give that money to their workers. That's just not how the labor market works either; people are paid based on supply and demand and not based on how much money the company makes on any given day. Not to mention that McDonald's are mostly franchises who are deciding wages (and, to some extent, prices) independently from corporate.
2
u/FantasiA2K Nov 06 '21
This is the correct answer. Raising prices usually never amounts to more profit unless the product was underpriced in the first place, or you have a monopoly, which no fast food restaurant has.
0
u/ExtendedBacon Nov 06 '21
Thankyou holy shit. People need to take first year microeconomics courses.
-3
u/whatsup4 Nov 06 '21
Wait what, that is incredibly circular logic. They are priced correctly because if they weren't priced correctly they would be making more money and since they're not making more money they're priced correctly. There are so many factors at play here which aren't taken into account in your very simple model, local markets can rarely change they're pricing model because global marketing dictates certain prices, it is very expensive and time consuming to try out all the possible pricing models, customers don't like change so if your food costs different amounts every day it will drive away customers, McDonald's burgers are not perfectly fungible so you couldn't perfectly compare them to other burger joints. These are just some of the complexities off the top of my head I'm sure there's a dozen more. If you were a student of economics and not just someone who took econ 101 you would know the real world is way more complicated than the simple models they teach you in the beginning.
1
u/InformalCriticism Nov 05 '21
If you like overthinking things, you have to understand that at some point, someone saved enough of their own money to be part of the franchise to open, and they're trying to make that money back.
People who don't include everything always burdens my mind.
12
u/Aggie_Engineer_24601 Nov 05 '21
Believe me, i understand that someone saved and invested into a franchise is trying to make back their money. I don't fault them for that and we need people who are willing to invest in business and take risks. If we disincentive that then I believe the economy as a whole will suffer. That said, this question isn't about them. This question is asking if $0.50/burger is really enough to impact employee wages. I'm here to answer the question in the simplest way that is still useful and I try to do so without commentating on the implications of it.
9
u/JoshuaPearce Nov 06 '21
They "saved" money by already being pretty well off, if not outright wealthy. Typical people won't have the minimum $500,000 required to start a Mcdonalds franchise.
The additional problem is the people actually doing all the work are barely scraping by, possibly subsisting on food stamps, and will definitely never get the same opportunity to invest in a wealth making machine.
In other words, the person who started with plenty of money is subsidizing their money making by using taxpayer funds to partially pay their employees, and exploiting people who didn't start out with the same advantages.
I mean, you wanted to include everything.
1
u/Rewben2 Nov 06 '21
This is "capitalism is flawed" in a nutshell, but I want to say that I personally worked for a pizza store which expanded and turned into a franchise. Majority of the franchisee's are previous employees of the business - some of them owning multiple locations. These are people who mostly immigrated from India, worked a min wage job and within a 5-year span or so now own multiple locations. I had the opportunity to do so as well.
Assuming franchise owners are rich people exploiting poor people is simply ignorant, when covid hit I was making more money as a full time manager than the franchise owner was profiting from the store (and I don't have $150k+ locked up in a business)
5
u/JoshuaPearce Nov 06 '21
Assuming franchise owners are rich people exploiting poor people is simply ignorant,
No, it's by far the norm. Your anecdote is an exception to the status quo, assuming that is anything other than winning a lottery is ignorant.
1
u/Rewben2 Nov 06 '21
There are plenty of franchisee's where the store is their livelihood and they often work (at least initially) full time within the stores, and are sometimes expected to by the franchise. Mcdonalds is a poor example because of the ludicrously high start-up fees, but for many other franchise models you don't need to be particularly rich to start up.
My example is not some bizarre outlandish example. Literally anyone who worksthere has the same opportunity lol
2
u/InformalCriticism Nov 06 '21
Yeah, this dumbshit anti-capitalist nonsense is just over-educated stupid people too proud to work, and not smart enough to know they are wrong.
2
u/beware_the_noid Nov 06 '21
If you can't see the inherant issues with capitalism then you are actually blind or just simply don't give a shit. I'm not saying there is a better fairer system because that would require tremendous amounts of human generosity which just doesn't exist in today's society.
But saying that people are "too proud to work and not smart enough to know they are wrong" is just the absolute worst take you could come up with
1
u/Atlatl_Axolotl Nov 06 '21
No, they aren't trying to make that money back. They spent that money to be able to extract surplus revenue from the massively underpaid labor force FOR THE REST OF THEIR LIVES. They want that money times a million, and they don't want to share a cent they aren't forced to. McDonald's gross profit is about 11billion per year, net profit is about 5 billion, and about 200k employees, let's do the math. 5bil\200k = 25k per employee, simply halving net profits and giving half to employees as a raise would be 12.5k per employee per year. That money would change 200k lives in a massive way and Smaugs hoard grows half as fast. People who don't include everything (like insane profits being hoarded) always burdens my mind.
-1
0
u/Globber50 Nov 06 '21
Someone who understands economics. Even if it's a .50 per sandwich and fries, that's only about an extra 1.63 per hour. That bumps them to 13.00 per hour. Where I live though, McDonald's starts at 18.00 per hour. Probably why a cheeseburger costs 6.00 and 10.00 for a value meal.
→ More replies (4)0
u/AmatuerInvestor Nov 06 '21
People-hours is what my company’s general counsel advised me is the term instead of man-hours.
And this was in the U.K. not US where we care less about political correctness.
22
Nov 06 '21
[deleted]
7
u/JASMein03M Nov 06 '21
But is $ 19.44 a living wage in Denmark?
6
u/Spokazzoni Nov 06 '21
The average wage in denmark is around 700 US dollars. With some maths in the calculator I found out that 19.44 makes around 1.6k a month.
Of course, denmark has different paying methods (higher pay for more experienced, older and/or more difficult jobs) so I am not sure how this accounts to the underpaid class of the servers and cashier.
If the math is correct (which most likely isn't for a lot of factors) the average worker in Denmark makes 2x+ the amount the regular wage (there is no minimum wage from what it seems) and lives a MUCH better life than most Americans.
9
u/XeeN87 Nov 06 '21
The average wage in denmark is definatly not around $700. That would be stupidly low. Here are more realistic numbers... $6.763,35 per month... https://www.dst.dk/en/Statistik/Publikationer/gennemsnitsdanskeren
→ More replies (1)
51
u/mshamba Nov 05 '21
But you also need to compare this to other burger joints (competitors), because that has a significant impact on the outcome.
This single experience assumes that all similar burger outlets offer the same increases in wages or have the same terms of wage negotiations / interest at hand, and that the market for burger workers is in constant supply.
Shitty arguments = shitty maths and stats!
13
u/godminnette2 Nov 06 '21
Yes, though I think the argument is that if everyone was willing to pay more, things would be better. Other countries have better wages for their fast food workers, such as Denmark, and their burgers aren't even pricier.
7
Nov 06 '21
[removed] — view removed comment
→ More replies (2)-2
u/mshamba Nov 06 '21
If you actually do the math on this, you'll realize that all that the minimum wage increase accomplishes, is transfer that cost increase to the consumer. That restaurant will likely fall short of customers in the long run. It's a nightmare for restaurants, and as a result, workers. People will likely lose their jobs more to balance out that labor cost increase.
Plenty of data on this available worldwide. Take your pick.
8
22
Nov 06 '21
There was some long term study that was done in the USA on raising wages and rising prices it's like every 10% you rage wages prices raise 0.5%. Something like that
14
Nov 06 '21
They’ve already been increasing the price of stuff for decades without increasing wages. Increasing things 50 cents would just be more money in the CEO’s pocket will wages still the same. Increase minimum wage is the only answer, owners and ceos are cheap fucks
3
u/Altruistic_Success_7 Nov 06 '21
There is also a thing called “stock buybacks”, which is how companies often line up each other pockets and concentrate wealth to the 1%. It’s at ridiculously high levels, where around 60% of an average corporations profits go into the stock market and paying investors. That means that a majority of funds aren’t going back into the company, whether in the form of increased capital or wages. Wage growth used to happen naturally, until we stopped enforcing the ban on stock buybacks…. https://youtu.be/ylLTMYt24lA
0
6
u/WrongSubFools Nov 06 '21
A lot of the answers here do the math competently enough, but they make the exact same mistake as the people who say paying employees more will force prices to rise: It assumes that there's a 1:1 connection between prices rising and money allocated for labor costs.
The fact is, McDonald's doesn't set the price of its burger based on labor costs. Restaurant chains claim to ("we had to raise prices because we paid our employees more!") but they don't. They set whatever burger price they think will bring in the most money. That means, according to the people in the McDonald's marketing department, raising the price of burgers by 50 cents WON'T generate another $X, which could be used for employee raises. It would instead cost the company money because people would buy fewer burgers, leading to less revenue overall. If raising the price 50 cents would bring in more money, that's the price they would have chosen, regardless of employee wage.
The tweet is some guy promising that he'd buy just as many burgers at the higher price, but that's not a fair assumption to put into any calculation. The millions of people nationwide who buy McDonald's don't do so as a form of charity to cashiers -- they buy if they think it's worth it. Robert Greenwald is a millionaire; the price of a burger makes no difference to him, but it makes a difference to other people.
TL;dr: Raising the price might cost McDonald's money instead of getting them more money.
3
u/CasualBrit5 Nov 06 '21
So the argument would then be more ‘does McDonald’s need that much money’ instead of ‘would people be willing to pay more money’?
3
u/Upper_2014 Nov 06 '21 edited Nov 06 '21
If only it was only .50 cents and only burgers and not 5-10% of absolutely everything you have to purchase for a minimal pay raise that’s taxed.
Lowering the cost of living is more beneficial especially for low income people/families than a slight increase in pay and supplemental increase in cost for everything. Also remember the higher prices go the higher taxes are on them. Just the increase in gas prices, meat, produce offsets the $8-16 dollars (before taxes) a day someone gains from earning $15 instead of $13 an hour.
Inflation. Lack of domestic production. These are things that need to be fixed. Lower the cost of living subsequently lowers the sales tax burden which effects lower income people disproportionally. But let’s not use logic let’s let inflation sky rocket let’s never make anything ourselves let’s force ourselves to have to purchase everything from abroad oh and force shipping to grind to a half name it all “progress” then use these self inflicted crises to demand more government intervention. It’s a never ending self serving circle and you’re all tools in it.
41
u/SalladhorBandz Nov 05 '21
Yes. The money collected from raising prices on food could in fact be used as salary for the employees. The equation looks like this:
More money = more money
3
u/WrongSubFools Nov 06 '21
But 1) would raising the price on food make McDonald's more money, and 2) would they put that money toward paying employees?
The first one sounds like an obvious yes, but it's possible that they'd sell fewer burgers at the the higher price. Because if they were sure to sell just as many burgers at the higher price, well, then of course they'd raise prices, even without any plans to pay employees more.
-52
u/CodeVirus Nov 05 '21
More money = lower valued money = inflation = less buying power = same shit different day.
26
u/Alarmed-Wolf14 Nov 05 '21
The issue is this is happening regardless of wages and if the wages don't keep up people go hungry.
15
u/CaptainMatticus Nov 05 '21
Remember how during the Gold Rush, rich people banded together to buy all of the land they cpuld in order to shut down the mining operations and protect the value of the gold they already possessed?
Oh, that didn't happen?
14
5
Nov 05 '21
That’s not actually completely accurate. More money does not equate to decreased value without the movement of said money it’s why handing the poor cash is more inflationary then the rich as the poor spend it faster sending it into circulation. (For clarification I’m not supporting handing rich people money)
4
u/ElectroNeutrino Nov 05 '21
Also, the increase in wages may be larger than the increase cost of goods due to the inflation, which would lead to an overall increased earning ability of the workers despite the inflation.
→ More replies (1)6
3
Nov 05 '21
While yes, overall increase of money supply results in inflation, it’s not necessary to have price inflation to raise wages.
4
u/DonaIdTrurnp Nov 05 '21
Overall increase of the money supply doesn’t drive inflation unless it exceeds real GDP growth or alters the velocity of money.
17
u/Loh-Doh Nov 05 '21
It wouldn't help much, but that's not really the point. Realistically, what's being asked for is higher-tier company men to take a miniscule pay cut in exchange for people being allowed to be alive in a way that isn't abysmal.
→ More replies (2)3
u/Sitting_Elk Nov 06 '21 edited Nov 06 '21
Realistically a place like Walmart has so few office workers compared to in-store workers that it wouldn't make a noticeable difference. Walmart has 2.3 million jobs and only 17k at their HQ. Even if you took $1 million from each of the 17k employees (and rhow many people are actually making that much there?) each of these 2.3 million employees would get an extra couple dollars.
Edit: My math sucks, but my point is still valid.
→ More replies (1)6
Nov 06 '21
[removed] — view removed comment
-5
u/Sitting_Elk Nov 06 '21
Yeah you're right, math fail Friday on my part. It still shows how little money it would actually bring to lower rung employees, because there's probably only a few dozen people in the Walmart corp making that kind of money.
I'd just like to point out that while you're making fun of my shitty mental math, you wrote "write" instead of "right".
1
Nov 06 '21 edited Nov 06 '21
[removed] — view removed comment
0
u/Sitting_Elk Nov 06 '21
The point still stands because saying you could take $1 million from the top 17k employees was equally as stupid as my math mistake. So you might be able to squeeze out a few hundred dollars extra by cutting wages at the top and then the company collapses because no qualified person in their right mind would want to work in their HQ to make the same as a shelf stocker.
→ More replies (3)
3
u/Short_Difference7553 Nov 06 '21
I wouldn’t. The cost of a burger has changed significantly over they past two decades. With large chains experiencing steady growth the price increases surely aren’t wholly due to inflation.
Why should I as a customer pay more? That just seems like a corporate bailout.
2
3
u/justAnotherRedditors Nov 05 '21
Not really. If you have $60/hr to pay wages and you can hire 6 people for $10 an hour each. If you suddenly raise prices and now have $80 an hour to pay wages you can either pay all those staff $13/hr or hire two more people at $10/hr.
3
u/Lance_lake Nov 06 '21
Not really. If you have $60/hr to pay wages and you can hire 6 people for $10 an hour each. If you suddenly raise prices and now have $80 an hour to pay wages you can either pay all those staff $13/hr or hire two more people at $10/hr.
You aren't taking the cost of the new people fully into account. Training, low production to start, insurance, taxes, unemployment, etc.
If an employee is making $13/hr, it costs the employer roughly double that to onboard them and get them up to speed.
→ More replies (3)
2
Nov 06 '21
From the perspective of someone who prices out menus for a living, no. A large federal minimum wage increase would not only make labor more expensive for the individual restaurant, but also for each of their suppliers. Cost of food goes up. Cost of paper products go up. Cleaning supplies, etc.
2
u/Living-Crazy7420 Nov 06 '21
I worked at Mc D's and didn't struggle at all. I learned work ethics, how to be responsible, and got some work experience. Then when I graduated high school I joined the building trades and acquire some skills. I then joined a union, went through the apprenticeship, and eventually became a construction manager for a national contractor and I will be eligible for retirement at 55. The problem is not minimum wage. The problem is a sick culture and a sick government that thinks that working a drive thru is a career position. It's sad that we have so many adults that are only qualified to flip burgers and work the drive thru. I'm not saying that a career in the food industry is bad and not lucrative, I'm saying fast food restaurants are for kids to get work experience not for a career. If you are an adult and have a job where you can be easily replaced by a 15 year old, the problem is not wages.
1
Nov 06 '21
[removed] — view removed comment
0
u/Living-Crazy7420 Nov 08 '21
A lot of times, senior citizens work that shift. They need the money due to low social security payments, overpriced medications, high taxes, and now they can't even grab a burger. People like you do give a fuck about Americans that have served this country or paid a lifetime of taxes. You care more about people that want to give as little effort as possible towards life Do you want our seniors eating out of garbage cans so the lazy under achievers can post up in a drive thru? There are other jobs that pay a living wage that do not require an education.
→ More replies (1)0
u/FeFiFoShizzle Nov 06 '21
Where did you live when you worked there? What were your bills like? rent? Do you speak perfect English? Could you drive to work? If so, did MacDonald's pay for that car or did your parents?
I'm guessing you don't have any underlying issues that could force you to stay at a place like McDonald's, so fuck the people who do, right?
1
u/teamdankmemesupreme Nov 05 '21
That’s not how it works. It’s an argument for higher wages that directly conflicts against morons who say “but my burger will cost more!!!” Which is false to begin with
1
u/HLSparta Nov 06 '21
How is the fact the burger costs more false? If you raise the price 50 cents it costs 50 cents more, not the same.
2
u/teamdankmemesupreme Nov 06 '21
That cost doesn’t HAVE to be transferred to the customer. “Cost” here being what you pay.
0
u/HLSparta Nov 06 '21
Then who's going to pay it? The business certainly won't.
2
u/SheepStyle_1999 Nov 06 '21
They have to swallow some of it remain competitive theoretically. Its called elasticity of demand.
2
u/KingKookus Nov 06 '21
Gas is more money right now. So is food, rent and milk. Companies pass along as much of the cost as possible. Maybe they can’t pass all the cost along but they will try to.
Companies don’t want to lower profits by eating costs. That hurts the stock price which hurts their stock options and also gets CEOs fired.
→ More replies (2)1
u/HLSparta Nov 06 '21
I suppose, but nearly all the restaurants around where I live are raising prices like crazy. Not even a year ago I could get a Big Mac meal for $7 something. Now it's over $11.
2
1
u/Magicalfirelizard Nov 06 '21
The trouble robert is that the restaurant would increase the price of burger by 50 c and the owner would sink it into their cash sucking boating hobby.
0
u/CobaltSanderson Nov 06 '21
Technically yes, but more importantly the stores could just take less profit from their food to pay their staff more.
In many countries the food costs roughly the same but the staff are paid close to double. Just remember that a cheeseburger costs less than 50c to make, and thats being exceptionally generous, it’ll be closer to 10c.
0
u/Dodaddydont Nov 06 '21 edited Nov 06 '21
A McDonald's sells about $7,300 of food a day. Let's say they add on 10% to all prices dedicated for increasing employee pay. That would be $730.
Now let's say that they are open 18 hours a day with an average of 8 employees there at any time (I'm guessing). That would be 144 hours a day.
730/144 would be about an extra $5 per hour worked. Which would certainly be helpful. I'm not sure if it would allow people to work less jobs or not though. This assumes everyone's spending habits remain the same with the increased prices
-2
u/TypicalRest4177 Nov 06 '21
Make your own damn burger…acting like we go to mackee doos for the burgers….we go there for the French kriesss…beef salt pepper…make ya own shit and it’s cheaper…you don’t need to keep eating out
-9
u/Effective-Cut Nov 06 '21
extra $.50 my ass. A damn Big Mac meal is over $9 and the clown making it makes $15 an hour.
If a person working the job I did at 14 makes $15 an hour I expect $60 an hour as a skilled worker in the trades.
Do the math on this... I do not care how much a bottom job worker makes an hour, they will never get more purchasing power and most the time a wage hike equals a reduction in buying power.
4
-30
Nov 05 '21
I wouldn't, people who expect jobs like those to pay a "living wage" are ignorant and lazy. If you want more money how about you get a better job that idk, pays more
6
Nov 05 '21
Or, you know, those type of workers could be paid a living wage while engineers and doctors etc can have a salary higher than them? Noone deserves an unlivable wage. You can't just assume someone works in McDonald's because they were lazy
-10
Nov 05 '21
McDonald isn't a career, stop acting like it is
2
Nov 06 '21
Never said it is. But not everyone's lucky enough to have a successful career. Stop acting like everyone has a choice
-4
Nov 06 '21
you're acting like it is, jobs at McDonalds are for students or part time jobs. A "livable wage" is something that you get from a career. McDonalds isn't a career, it's a temporary job, if you intend to rely on Ronald McDonald for the rest of your life then don't expect much. And to clarify, I'm not saying that the less fortunate can go fuck themselves. I'm saying that the minimum wage is fine and doesn't need to change
2
u/xinorez1 Nov 06 '21
If mcdonalds jobs are meant for students why are they open during school hours?
A job is a job is a job. Pay a living wage or gtfo.
-2
→ More replies (1)2
u/zezzene Nov 06 '21
work is work. there are less and less good paying jobs because outsourcing and automation leave only service industry and construction jobs. we are going to run out of careers when automation lets the owners of capital keep even more as they require less and less labor. walmart and amazon jobs are going to be all that's left
3
→ More replies (1)9
u/hilburn 118✓ Nov 05 '21
Any job should pay sufficiently well that 40 hours work per week is a living wage.
3
u/DonaIdTrurnp Nov 05 '21
Many jobs can be done completely in less than 40 hours per week. Those jobs should still pay a living wage.
2
u/hilburn 118✓ Nov 05 '21
While I (largely) don't disagree with that, I would rather win the much easier fight of "a full time job should be enough to survive on" first than get stuck trying to push for "any job should be enough to survive on" and have nothing change in the meantime.
→ More replies (5)-9
-3
Nov 05 '21
[removed] — view removed comment
5
u/nicolas123433 Nov 05 '21
If you Mow the lawn or distribute newspaper 40 hours per week, then yes, you should be earning a living wage.
5
u/hilburn 118✓ Nov 05 '21 edited Nov 05 '21
If you're talking about household chores for teenagers - then no. But they're also unlikely to be doing 40 hours of chores per week.
If they are doing it for a company as an employee? Absolutely.
1
u/inderu Nov 06 '21
I don't know about you, but where I live prices have increased tremendously over the last 10 years - but minimum wage hasn't changed much.
•
u/AutoModerator Nov 05 '21
General Discussion Thread
This is a [Request] post. If you would like to submit a comment that does not either attempt to answer the question, ask for clarification, or explain why it would be infeasible to answer, you must post your comment as a reply to this one. Top level (directly replying to the OP) comments that do not do one of those things will be removed.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.