Minimum Wage

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I stopped at McDonald’s the other day. I hate stopping there, but had no time to find anything else.

I ordered a quarter pounder with cheese, medium fry and a large coke.

It was nearly $12.00 

I gasped when I saw the receipt. The kid who handed it to me would have to work nearly two hours to by himself lunch at the same restaurant. 

I see guys working construction at the food truck.

Coffee and a couple of donuts runs them about $7.00

Gas prices are way higher than they were back when the minimum wage was set at $7.25 an hour back about 30 years ago.

Jeff Bezos??

He makes $4 million dollars an hour.

CEO’s make hundreds of times more than their lowest wage employee.

And I am not an economic expert but it galls me to the end of my nerves when people who are making barely living wages start in on degrading the very people who are making starve wages.

“$15.00 an hour for minimum wage jobs?? That’s crazy!”

What is it that makes some people want to see others suffer?

Back in 1983, I was paid $27 an hour as a construction laborer in the union. I also had medical insurance, dental and a pension fund.

37 years later a man doing that same job would earn approximately $20 an hour with no medical and no contribution to his pension. His pension would be what he put into it through his 401 K.

His medical would cost him about a grand a month.

Meanwhile, gas prices, housing prices, grocery bills, tuition, phone bills, heating bills...and on and on and on...

...have all blown up.

Think of those 1983 prices compared to 2021 prices.

But here we are.

Lower-middle income people are arguing for the ultra-wealthy arguing that the ultra-poor shouldn’t be properly compensated for their time.

$15 an hour - 40 hours per week - working every week of the year - is worth $31,000.

That’s too much to pay a McDonald’s worker?

“The prices will go up!”

I got news for you:

They’re already WAY up!

McDonald’s won’t go out of business if they pay people what they should be paid.

“A teacher in Texas makes $16 an hour. So they should make just a dollar more an hour than someone ‘flipping burgers’?”

No.

They shouldn’t.

Pay teachers more.

Pay ditch diggers more.

Pay safety guys more.

And instead of raging at those who can barely keep a roof over their heads...

...how about you turn that rage on those making $2400 a minute?

That’s who isn’t worth it.

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