Then change the business model or fail.
One could easily imagine a business that only works if they pay employees 50 cents a day. Such a business has no place in a society that respects human dignity.
If your business depends on purchasing a third of someone's waking hours but cannot afford to pay them enough to live securely and comfortably in exchange, then your "business model" depends on poverty to continue.
A McDonalds company help line used to advise their employees on how to apply for foodstamps. McDonalds is one of the largest employers of people who receive Medicaid and food stamps in the US. They've been using the social safety net as a form of government subsidies by the back door for years.
Oh, I just realized what needs to be done. You know how many states come after the families of people who died on Medicaid to get the money back, seizing inheritance and assets? How about instead of that, they start charging businesses for employees being on government assistance? Just straight fine them for every employee who has to be on food stamps, cash assistance, or Medicaid. Idk, 10k/employee/year sounds about right. Then paying them all +9k/year becomes the cheaper option.
Kind of like using tips to fill in for low wages, but with taking advantage of government help.
This is exactly the thing.
If a business cannot afford to pay its employees a living wage, that business is insolvent. What we have currently are a bunch of insolvent businesses that think they aren't insolvent because they've been allowed to pay poverty wages.
Lol they are moments away from not needing any staff at all
Yeah right … it is of course way easier and cheaper to build a hightech food factory in almost every town that is able to create at least a dozen of different dishes than paying the employees 20$ per hour. The technicians that repair those robots will of course also work for less than 20$. /s
Registered nurses in India make like $100/month
And they can buy a decent restaurant meal for around $3. I'm not sure what you think your point is here.
I don‘t know what the going rate for registered nurses in the US is - but you probably will at least get 20$…
This is 100% bullshit and they 100% know it. They pay employees in Denmark over 20$/hr and the food is actually cheaper there than it is here. If it was unsustainable, then they wouldn't be doing business in Denmark. The difference between there and here, Denmark is essentially 100% regulated by industry-wide labor unions. Starbucks employees shouldn't be trying to unionize, the entire fast-food industry should be unionizing together.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/mcdonalds-workers-denmark/
Interesting, I don’t think I’d heard of an industry union like that. It’s a great idea
Yes you have, the Screen Actors Guild is an industry-wide actor's union. The Writers Guild of America is an industry-wide guild for writers. The Teamsters as well. Actually most "Blue Collar" unions are industry unions. Plumbers, carpenters, electricians, etc. all have industry-wide unions. It is a recent phenomenon relegated to service and sales industries that are forcing unions to be only at single stores instead of industry or even company wide.
Your McDonald's franchises are unsustainable? Oh well.
Most McDonald's stores are privately owned franchises. If corporate is crafting their franchise agreements such that private store owners are not able to pay a living wage to employees, then corporate is to blame.
But private owners are the ones who ultimately set wages. Franchisees need to bear some responsibility here, too. They're the ones who are in a position to pressure corporate for franchise agreements which give them a better opportunity to offer living wages, and they're not.
I'll stick to the multibillion dollar megacorp but you do you.
possibly, just possibly, if CEOs weren't pathologically greedy then you'd be able to pay your workers what they are worth and wouldn't have this 'it's too expensive' worry to keep you from doing the right thing
McDonald’s strong sales recovery and a healthy stock price performance earned its chief executive
Chris Kempczinski received a pay package of just over $20 million in 2021, according to new SEC documents filed on Monday.
That was nearly double the $10.8 million he was paid during the pandemic-plagued 2020. It was also the largest pay package received by a McDonald’s CEO since 2017, when Kempczinski’s predecessor Steve Easterbrook received $21.8 million.
That sounds nice and all, but if he gave up his 20m/yr and gave it to employees.. everyone would get an extra $100 per year.
There are some parts I agree with this, because if we did calculate the profits and gave all the profits generated for 2022, we would end up only being able to give the average worker a raise to $16.20 an hour divided over 1.35 million employees.
But that is part of the problem. McDonalds has become too heavy for American workers to save it. It is over franchised.
McDonald competes using the "Walmart strategy" Where they under price the competition until no one can compete and are forced to close.
But times have changed.
This business model doesn't work when workers have options for good paying jobs.
$15 * 1,350,000 = $20,250,000 per hour for all employees per hour.
McDonald made in profits 14 billion in 2023
Assuming McDonalds took that 14 billion and gave it all to the employees.
(14,000,000,000 / 365)/24 = 1.6 million per hour divided over 1,350,000 million employees give or take.
Add that to the original
$20,250,000 + 1,600,000 = 21,850,000 / 1,350,000 = $16.18 per hour.
Note: this does not include stock buybacks as those are not ready for 2023, but I imagine around 2 billion extra we could dig out of those expenses. Also I do not know the overall executive pay. I can tell you the CEO's pay, and even the average, but I have no Idea what that total number is.
In all, I have tried to keep the math consistent, Please criticize the math, as I still feel like I have done something wrong.
I didn't want this conclusion. But if it is true. The Food industry is going to need to raise it's prices and stop overpaying it's CEOs. Or small Family owned businesses that don't have those constraints will outpace them in the next few years.
Edit: If you want more context and made it this far, check out _healththetank's post below, it adds a little bit more understanding on what I got wrong.
14,000,000,000 / 365)/24 = 1.6 million per hour divided over 1,350,000 million employees give or take.
You're paying employees 24hrs a day, 365 days a year. They should be paid, assuming standard full time (which most of them are not), 40hrs per week, 52 weeks per year or 2,080 hours.
14,000,000,000/2080 = 6,730,769 per hour over 1.35 million staff = a raise of $5 per hour, putting the new hourly rate at $20/hr. Not way higher, but worth noting.
Additionally, as I mentioned above, the assumption of 40hrs per week for all staff is highly unlikely to be accurate. I looked, but wasn't able to find any hard data, just anecdotal stuff. Most staff I know in fast food places work ~30hrs per week, if they're 'full time', so the number is likely higher than I've shown.
Therefor it is entirely possible, even without touching the CEO pay, to pay $20 per hour to all staff.
I have a bigger issue with the billions they spend every year in stock buybacks. Last year, it was $4B. That's an additional 20k per employee.
Translation: "We have decided that when given the choice between paying our workers a living wage and paying our executives lavishly, we pick the latter and think you are too dumb to notice"
That might be true, but people have to stop working there as employee demand dictates pay rates. Everyone saw this during the pandemic. Short supply of workers lead to an immediate raise in pay.
You also have to remember McDonald's is a franchise business and the owner might not be taking in millions, as McDonald's has been known to mistreat franchisees from lower income neighborhoods.
https://news.yahoo.com/mcdonalds-defeats-black-franchisees-1-134243905.html
https://www.eatthis.com/news-subway-mcdonalds-and-more-are-expected-to-be-investigated-by-the-ftc/
Close your disgusting business then. Please start abroad
Then die.
Well then don't run the Business
They always say that like it's anyone's problem but their own. Figure out how to make your business model adapt to changing circumstances or die out, either way this is a problem for McDonald's to worry about internally, not for society to worry about on their behalf.
Bad business model, innit.
But its sustainable in other countries.
… while continuing to have a 45° profit angle year after year
The food is poison to a community anyway.
McDonald’s sent its own letter to its restaurant system on Monday, which was viewed by CNBC. Responding to the bill, the company said it and other franchisee groups “worked tirelessly over the past year to fight these policies and protect Owner/Operators’ ability to make decisions for their businesses locally and protect their restaurants and their crew.
...
Our very-well-paid lobbyists are frantically schmoozing to ~~bribe~~ donate to whoever will take our money to vote to protect our crew from these egregious wage increases.
mcdonalds is basically a real estate investment company that sells hamburgers.. it's that business that stands to take a hit if their franchisees start failing because they, too, are greedy af.
a fair wage and fair menu prices work elsewhere. but not in the good o' u.s. of a.
Maybe they should pay their CEO 10x less
That doesn't sound very free market of you, McDonald's.
That’s capitalism, baby! Thanks for playing!
They've been offering $19-$22 an hour starting pay at at least one McDonald's in Sunnyvale, CA. I don't understand how $20 is unsustainable given CA prices.
Paying your employees a livable wage is your first priority as a business owner. You always make payroll, no matter what.
If you can't find a way to reconcile infinite growth as a company against your employees' requirement to feed and house themselves, you're a garbage business owner and should just step down.
"~~business model~~ Greedily taking 13.2 billion dollars every year for our wealthy executives can't sustain ~~$20/hr~~ matching inflation closer."
hmmm well looks like the invisible hand of the free market says its time for your business to close since it failed or whatever capitalists fuckheads like to say
How about we make every Mickey D’s a worker co-op and then everybody can verify this information.
No it won't, bunch of fucking assholes who don't want to drop a fancy dinner every now and then.
Then close the fuck down.
Let's burn the place down!
Great, if they can’t pay a living wage then they are just a drain on taxpayers anyways. Happy to get these welfare queens off the government dime.
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