McDonald's can't figure out how its workers get by on minimum wage
McDonald's recently partnered with Visa to bring basic budgeting education to McDonald's workers. Because obviously if your workers are complaining about not earning enough money, it's not that you should pay them - no, it's because they need to learn how to use that money responsibly.
But hilariously, even McDonald's was unable to work out how one of its employees could budget an entire month's expenses on their minimum-wage McDonald's job. On the budgeting tools website that McDonald's/Visa created, the budget they propose actually includes a second job. And even then, it has ridiculously out of touch assumptions, like the idea that the health care budget for this hypothetical person will be only $20/month. (Mind you, McDonald's charges its workers about $15 PER WEEK for their health insurance.)
This is particularly galling because McDonald's recently came under fire for forcing its workers to accept their paychecks on Visa prepaid cards. Unlike a check or direct deposit, these cards charge employees fees to access their own money, to transfer it to another account (i.e. their bank account), and they even charge an "inactivity fee" if you don't use your money soon enough.
Our country has a huge problem with the way we treat the people who grow, pick, and prepare our food. When you look at the wages we pay to food service workers, farmers, the laborers who pick crops, the slaughterhouse workers responsible for cutting our meat… frankly it's a miracle we're not all dead. These people have what is arguably one of the most important jobs in the country - getting food to ourselves and our family - but we treat them like dirt. Is it just me, or is that totally insane?
If there is any justice in the world, the committee that created this insulting faux budget will all be fired and end up having to take entry level jobs at McDonald's restaurants for minimum wage pay.
Image courtesy Flickr/dsuniaga