McHelp Me! McDonald’s Pushes Welfare, Not Wages

[Omaha Steve]

Cross post from the Labor Group.

http://www.aflcio.org/Blog/Corporate-Greed/McHelp-Me!-McDonald-s-Pushes-Welfare-Not-Wages

10/25/2013

Mike Hall

McDonald’s can’t say it doesn’t know it pays its workers so little that many of them qualify for public assistance (52% of fast-food workers do) to eat, go to the doctor or heat their homes. In fact, the burger giant appears to encourage its employees to seek out government help to meet the ends that their paychecks won’t.

The people who staff the company’s “McResource” help hotline for employees are so well-versed in the needs of workers who make poverty-level wages, they seem to have information on how and where to apply for food stamps, Medicaid and other programs for the poor right at their fingertips.

Read more from Salon’s Josh Eidelson who writes about the phone call Nancy Salgado, a 10-year employee in Illinois making the state’s minimum wage of $8.25 an hour, made to the McResources line, and then take a look at this video with excerpts from that call for help.
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BTW, according to National Employment Law Project, the government spends about $7 billion a year on public assistance for fast-food workers like Salgado. Those are our tax dollars at work, not fast food’s, which makes $7.4 billion in profits. As the video points out:

McDonalds doesn’t want to pay its workers more. It wants you to pay its workers more.

Find out more at Low Pay Is Not OK: http://lowpayisnotok.org/7-billion/

[SouthernLiberal]

1. So I am paying for employees....

And I don't even eat there! I checked on McDonald's revenue for 2012 and compared it to mine. Now, for me, 2012 was a good year. I almost caught up from the salary cut my former employer handed out a few years ago. And I tried to figure out how it was that McDonald's, that great big company, needed my help to pay it's employees. I made (now this is revenue to revenue, no trickiness with after tax income or anything). In 2012 I made 0.000003454545454545455% of what McDonald's made.

And they make ME help to support the families of their employees!