Fast Food Jobs Cost America $7 Billion A Year? Does McDonald’s Make America Poor

[OhioChick]

October 15, 2013 12:39 pm EDT

Filed under “data to hard to obtain and analyze” are various estimates for what poverty or low wages cost the U.S. economy. Among the issues this kind of analysis creates are that increased wages can cut the margins of those companies that give them. Lower profits often mean jobs cuts, or reduced capital spending. If people make more, do the number of people who make more drop?

Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley have come up with a proprietary calculation of the impact of a large number of people being paid at or around the minimum wage. In a paper entitled “Fast Food, Poverty Wages: The Public Cost of Low-Wage Jobs in the Fast Food Industry”, the authors conclude:

More than half (52 percent) of the families of front-line fast-food workers are enrolled in one or more public programs, compared to 25 percent of the workforce as a whole.

The cost of public assistance to families of workers in the fast-food industry is nearly $7 billion per year.


More: http://247wallst.com/retail/2013/10/15/fast-food-jobs-cost-america-7-billion-a-year-does-mcdonalds-make-america-poor/?mod=marketwatch

[VanillaRhapsody]

1. Yes...and Walmart is worse yet..

they started this trend...hire part-time...instruct employees how to collect Medicaid...WIN!

[Swede Atlanta]

2. Yes.......

We allow businesses that sell unhealthy food cheap to underpay workers. That underpayment results in those workers relying on various social safety net programs to make up the difference.

The problems:
(1) These so-called restaurants sell unhealthy food that is contributing to the obesity problem
(2) These so-called restaurants are facilitating a "working poor" class where people are working sometimes more than 40 hours a week but are paid so little they cannot afford even a modest apartment, food and other life necessities.

I would rather pay $7.00 for a burger and know that the staff are being paid a "living" wage as opposed to a "minimum" wage.

[TexasBushwhacker]

3. The problem isn't that fast food jobs aren't better

The problem is that people used to have better jobs to choose from; jobs in manufacturing, etc. I don't blame McDonald's for not picking up the slack when corporations chose to offshore millions of good American jobs.