General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsTyree Johnson, McDonald's Worker, Still Makes Minimum Wage After 20 Years Of Service
huffpo: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/12/tyree-johnson-mcdonalds_n_2286464.html
After 20 years cooking burgers and manning the fryer for the national chain, Tyree Johnson still makes just the minimum wage, Bloomberg reports. That's $8.25 an hour in 44-year-old Johnson's hometown of Chicago, where he works at two different McDonald's restaurants.
The CEO of McDonald's, Bloomberg points out, made $8.75 million last year.
In an emailed statement, a McDonald's spokesperson pointed out that the majority of the company's restaurants are independently owned. "We value our employees well-being and the contributions they make to our restaurants, and thank them for what they do each and every day," wrote Cheryll Ocampo Forsatz.
Johnson is not alone. Other fast-food and retail companies offer fairly low wages. Walmart caps annual raises at 60 cents per hour at most, according to internal documents reviewed by The Huffington Post. Walmart also keeps many of its hourly employees part-time so that it does not have to give them an array of benefits.
Restaurant jobs have been booming, and the service economy more broadly is growing, but these jobs do not pay well. Food service workers were paid an average of just $18,130 in 2010, and retail sales jobs on average paid $20,990 in 2010, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Underemployment still is rampant. 14.4 percent of American workers were unemployed, marginally attached to the workforce, or working part-time despite wanting to work full-time in November, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Low wages are hurting the economy, as consumer spending comprises roughly two-thirds of the U.S. economy. A November study by Demos found that raising retail workers' wages to $25,000 per year would lift 734,075 people out of poverty and create 100,000 to 132,000 new jobs.
SheilaT
(23,156 posts)for keeping minimum wage low has been to keep prices low. Well, every time minimum wage stalls for a decade or so, it's not as though prices at places like McDonald's never go up. And it's certainly not as if everyone in management never gets a raise.
And while $25k a year is better than minimum wage, it's still not very much money. Someone making that takes home what, $1800 a month?
Tab
(11,093 posts)and after 20 yrs?
Ilsa
(61,697 posts)To a couple of meals per shift with wages that low after 20 years. They should be ashamed of themselves.
Kaleva
(36,327 posts)SheilaT
(23,156 posts)I have figured that if I am very hard up, I'd take a job that gives free meals. I think (and I could be wrong) that most jobs involved in food service do give one free meal per shift. If I were living very close to the edge, I'd take that, because even if that's the only meal I'd eat, at least I'd know I'd have the one meal a day to count on.
Kaleva
(36,327 posts)Money was very tight at the time ( I lost almost 40 pounds during that time) and walking was free.
SheilaT
(23,156 posts)Although some of the people we feed are not technically homeless, but they're hungry.
I like to cook and it is very gratifying to fix something and have several dozen people tell me how much they enjoyed it.
Nikia
(11,411 posts)When we weren't working, we got 20% off. We did win a regional upsale contest which won us free meals for a month.
I know that some restaurants give free meals to their workers, including some all you can eat restaurants.
has absolutely no interest in paying workers any more than they are forced to.
Cha
(297,503 posts)TwilightGardener
(46,416 posts)Maybe another dime next year, if you're good. Poor guy. It sounds like they adjusted his wages to whatever the minimum went up to, without adding his (tiny) cumulative raises onto it.