[img]1640|right|Arthur Christopher Schaper||no_popup[/img]Last Thursday, a day of fast-food rage flooded (or dripped like slow, dirty cooking oil) onto American streets. In spite of all the Happy Meals they are selling, these workers were not happy. The “How may I help you?” employees were in a bad mood, unwilling to take orders.
In protesting how little they are making, most of them barely are getting by on $7.25 an hour, $15,000 a year. In California, it is $8.
Driving their point through to the masses, they want to earn at least $15 an hour. To make their case to every hamburger-loving patron, the fast-food workers have organized their frustrations, staging protests in 35 cities.
One young lady whined to a local television reporter:
“People have no idea what I have to do. I have to work long hours. I have to deal with rude customers.”
That is what entry-level jobs are. No one is doomed to stay there, if he or she chooses. The young lady had been working at the job for 10 years, but she she never went anywhere in her life.
Persons with more self-respect and less self-pity would respond:
“It's called a job, not a career. It's called opportunity, not difficulty.”
Like many younger workers in this generation, a mentality of “Where's mine?” and “Gimme” have become commonplace. Other societal forces have made hardworking Americans work harder without seeing a generous return on their labor.
Where do the individual flaws originate?
The self-esteem cult of the 1980s and ‘90s in our public schools created an unhappy crew of people who are giving out Happy Meals today. Frustration with their current station has moved them to demand more, to go on strike, to claim that Ronald McDonald is taking them out, and not in a good way.
Let's discuss this in seven-course meal fashion.
Dollar Store No More
What good will it do to raise the minimum wage? Not much, definitely less than anything that you can buy for one dollar at McDonald's or Burger King.
Forcing businesses to pay more for their entry-level employees will have consequences, none you can take out of the plastic bag and collect:
1. Businesses who have to pay more for entry-level workers end up showing more workers the exit, as in unemployment. Free market economist Milton Friedman began one commentary with: “The federal government has just passed a law that will raise unemployment.” How? By raising the minimum wage.
2. Businesses forced to increase their minimum wage end up hiking their prices. Now consumers are hurting. Imagine having to pay $10 for a Big Mac. Not so big now, is it? Forget about the dollar menu. With inflation of salaries comes inflation of the prices of goods and services.
3. The same businesses forced to pay more at the entry-level, the more workers there will be who do not learn the basic skills to thrive in a different line of work. Small business owners often complain that they cannot find workers who know how to do basic things, like clean a toilet or wash down a lunch room.
While fast food employees are fasting from their silence and marching on the streets for more pay, they ought to spend time reading economics or revisit their voting patterns over the past four years. Current dreary conditions are not merely the fault of entitled, underworked, overly-demanding employees.
Bush’s Plan Backfired
President George W. Bush signed into law a federal minimum wage increase in 2007, a concession to the Democratic majorities of 2006 that reduced him to falling back into his more liberal ways and relying heavily on his veto power. He helped increase unemployment, despite clamoring from economists on the left and right.
Came 2007, housing crises, massive recessions, Big Banks, Big Businesses, Big Government Bailouts. CEOs do not strike for higher wages. They called Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson for a multi-billion dollar help line. More fiat money from the Fed, more debt on this country, less wealth for everyone, (plus the inflation of college tuition and deflation of learning). Now everyone is making Big Macs instead of living large in a real career.
Let's not forget President Obama's hand in this fast-food fiasco. From the 2009 stimulus, to the auto bailouts, to ObamaCare, Mr. Obama super-sized Big Government. His insurance mandates (and higher taxes) have forced businesses to cut hours, lay off workers, and push working poor to resort to food stamps to get by (and to buy little).
Fast food employees cry: “I can't live on this salary.” They have a point. Raising salaries, though, is not enough. With President Obama's high taxes, increasing food prices and jobless recovery recovering few, fast food employees are fed up. Instead of taking to the streets, they should take to the polls, demand free market reforms. Then they can say of their options, “I’m lovin’ it!”
