The only time I really like this scenario is this culturally induced mentality makes it
very easy to pick up beautiful young girls. Granted you'd never want to marry one
of them.:)

Also, since when did paying for everything count for nothing?

I'm guessing this thread is cathartic to you, considering you live in Michigan where there has been a mass exodus of people that were highly paid but for the most part not very skilled. :1orglaugh

The other part that sickens me are entitlements. I love stories where everyone at a shop banded to get it unionized, come to work one morning and the plant is closed down.
A weld shop I worked at for a couple years would find ways to get rid of people who even thought about it. Granted a union is good in some instances, but if a company is underwater, it's a ball and chain to the bottom. :2 cents:

What's happening in this state has nothing to do with me. Most of that is on the other side of the state and has little bearing on what goes on over here on the west side other than having to hear the news stories. Most of the industry on the west side has little to nothing to do with the automotive industry. It's not to say there is absolutely nothing here, but those jobs around here (auto parts) were never high paying in the first place.

The only relation this thread has for me, much like Robbie, is that we have worked hard and sacrificed to get where we are in life and enjoying some level of comfort from that focus and dedication. If you have actually done this yourself, and gotten to the point of some security, you become infuriated that others are constantly making excuses why THEY can't do it, or feel that they should get hand outs/entitlements "just because", or $15.00 an hour for minimum work and effort on the back of others who are more successful.

Apologies, shouldn't assume.

Still enjoying all the posts. :thumbsup

The article I read mostly quoted a study that showed the almost all of the government help came in the form of various food assistance programs.

The people who work at Walmart make very little so those that have kids in school, their kids qualify for the free or reduced meal programs. In many states they offer free breakfast and lunch. The other costs came from earned income credits on taxes for low income people, medicaid health insurance for low income people, energy assistance, food stamps, section 8 and/or other housing assistance.

While some of this like housing assistance, food stamps and energy assistance can easily mean older people, the child care, child lunch and tax stuff is aimed at people with kids who are poor.

I have no idea what the breakdown is by age group, but the big costs were housing, child care and food assistance which means a good amount of this money is going to the non-elderly. I have no doubt in my mind that there are a decent number of people working at walmart for small wage, but they get enough government assistance that they live a reasonable life and have little motivation to work harder and move up the ladder.

kane, go into Walmart and look at the employees. Ask yourself...does that mesh with what you read in those stats?

Do I know people with kids who work at Walmart? Yes. Do their kids get "free lunch" at school? I have no idea. I do know that the girls I know personally at Walmart who have a kid, have enough money to go out to the local bars and to eat out at restaurants and even buy a little weed.

They also get employee discounts on everything in Walmart (which is pretty sweet...I've done some Christmas shopping at K-Mart by giving a friend of mine the money and made out like a bandit with her buying everything with her discount)

I'm not going to subscribe to this b.s. that people with jobs are being mistreated somehow because they are ringing you up at the cash register at Walmart or taking your order at McDonalds.

Why aren't you and I doing that? Why aren't you and I working at Walmart or at McDonalds?
Because we had bigger things in mind. And our money that we make shows it.

Just like a doctor makes more than a guy paving the road. Does the guy paving the road work "harder". You bet your ass he does. But that doesn't mean he "deserves" as much money as the doctor who has the intelligence and the education and skills.

One thing is for sure...99.99% of the people are "worker bees". I don't know why that is. But I'm glad of it. Makes it easier for ambitious people to rise up.

I actually think the handouts are helping to keep these people in the lower wage jobs and they are also helping to keep wages for jobs like this down.

A while back I watched a documentary about poverty in the US. One of the people they followed was a woman who admits she was dumb and got knocked up at 18. Right after her kid was born the kids dad went to jail for a long time.

Three years later she gets married to another guy. They end up having three kids together and for 5-6 years lived a very normal, happy life. They both worked, made a decent living and had a normal middle class life. Then one day he decided he didn't want that anymore and left. Just disappeared. She has no idea where he is. From time to time he pops up on the state's radar when he starts working and they take money from his checks to pay back child support, but then he quits the job and disappears again. He is a deadbeat.

She has a full time job working at an assisted living center. She doesn't make much and has 4 kids so she gets food stamps, housing assistance (they live in a nice 4 bedroom house) daycare assistance and other things so she lives a decent life with all of these government programs.

At her job she started coming up with some good ideas for actives for the residents. Her boss was so impressed that she offered her a huge promotion. The company has 8 different facilities. She would be in charge of the activities for all of them and oversea the people at each place that worked with the residence. It was a big pay increase. She sat down and crunched the numbers and realized that if she took the job she would make too much and no longer qualify for her aid. If that happened it would be the equivalent of a 25% loss in pay. She went to her boss, explained the situation and her boss told her that if she had a bachelors degree she would be a in a different pay grade and they could pay her more for this job and she would get better raises so her starting pay would be about the same as the combination of benefits plus wages that she has now and it would increase as she got raises. So they agreed to promote her, but not give her a raise and the company paid for her to got to school. When she got the degree she would get the big raise and a bonus check that would make up for the lack of a raise now, but for now she could stay on the benefits while getting the degree.

She came right out and said she likely wouldn't have taken the job had they not given her the option of going back to school because she didn't want to lose her government aid. I think that is prevailing thought for a lot people. I would bet there are plenty of younger people working at walmart making a shitty wage and getting plenty of government handouts and the combination of the two of them allow them to live a decent life so they don't have a lot of motivation to go out and do better.

I grew up in a small town where there were a decent number of poor people. I was on the free lunch program because we were poor and I would guess that at least 50% of the students were was well. I would guess that those who work at Walmart and are the sole bread winners for their houses and have kids are getting food stamps and free lunches and other things. Some may be getting more than others, but I would not be at all shocked to see it.

Sorry for the long ass post. It is 3am and I am rambling.

According to that link the average McDonalds store manager makes under $15 an hour, $40k a year.

So you can bust your ass at min wage, then eventually move up to $9.76 an hour which is $20k a year. And then waaaay down the line you can finally manage a whole store on salary for $40k a year. Which is probably a lot more then 40 hours a week.

And only then the lower middle class dream can finally be achieved.

We the taxpayers are subsidizing these corporations low wages. They pay them below a liveable wage, then they require government aide to survive in various forms. So who pays... the tax payers. Yea thats YOU

arock10...where do you keep getting this "bust your ass" bullshit?

NO guy at McDonalds asking me for my order over the drive thru speaker is "busting his ass".

He's doing an unskilled job that requires no education, no skills, nothing...and he does it sedentary in air conditioning without even breaking a sweat.

And again...what McDonalds workers are getting "govt. subsidies"??? Maybe the retired guy or lady who is bored and wants to supplement their Social Security Checks. But they get that money ANYWAY.

The young people working their first jobs there shouldn't be getting govt. subsidies.

And the few stone cold stupid people that work there in their 30's and can't figure a way to move up the ladder past fry cook don't DESERVE any more money.

Why the fuck does McDonalds have to be responsible for those people? They already give them employment.

You seriously are off base on this. NOBODY at Mc-Fucking-Donalds is "busting their ass" and an entry level job asking me if I want fries with that isn't even worth minimum wage.

Think about that. And don't tell me about my tax dollars "subsidizing" them. I think that comes from skewed stats that don't differentiate the retired folks who work there for extra money.

Also...IF my tax dollars help some of those people...then so be it. The U.S. govt. MIGHT spend 1/100th of 1% of our taxes on helping people.
They spend the rest of it on the military so we can kill people worldwide.

I'd much rather help some half-retarded dumb fuck who can't figure out how to do anything but take my order at McDonalds than to build one more drone to kill people with.

EDIT: I love how liberals will scream that the govt. doesn't spend much money on welfare when fiscal conservatives complain about it. But when they want to go after "evil" corporations...they pull out the "welfare card" like it's a huge expenditure that we must stop. lol

http://thecontributor.com/economy/wh...nald%E2%80%99s

Again, by paying them less, they double their profits at the taxpayers expense.

I'm just saying raise the min wage a few bucks to bring it in line with cost of living increases. I don't care if its the easiest job ever, the minimum wage has been in decline since the 1970s.

Then why don't all those people quit and find a better job?

And how much money does Walmart SAVE the "taxpayers" when you shop there. Oh, I guess they don't put that into the equation. Or how much Walmart pays in local, state, and federal taxes for that store. Oh, left that out too.

No, I'm not mad at them. I'm bewildered that you are eating up this pro-union lobbyists horseshit without questioning it at all.

The govt. said it so it MUST be true! :)
Think about that while they spy on you, search you at the airport, and take YOUR tax dollars and siphon it off to their cronies in the military industrial complex.

I keep getting the "bust your ass" bullshit because I keep hearing how everyone busts their ass and moves up the ladder. Well, busting your ass and moving up the ladder doesn't improve a lot of peoples' situation

But isn't one of the factors of cost of living increases caused by higher wages?

Fuel costs and higher wages are what drive that. I bought a coca cola at the 7-11. It was $1.89 for a single coke!

That same coke was 5 cents when I was a kid. And 20 cents when I was a teenager.

What "magic" happened that caused it to go up in price? Laws of economics say that when something is mass produced and sold it goes DOWN in price. But yet...that coke is outrageously priced.
I don't know how a kid can go to the store anymore and have a soda at those prices.

The cost of living just magically went up I guess. No reason. It just goes up....at least that's what the politicians seem to want us all to believe I guess.

Or could it be factors like the GOVT. printing so much money that the value of the dollar has dropped like a rock? Coupled with union demands, the cost of fuel to transport the product...and you have a 5 cent soda being sold for almost 2 bucks.

Must be McDonalds or Walmarts fault. :(

Yes it does and yes it can.

But one thing is for sure...sitting in the drive thru window at McDonalds to collect your paycheck and not doing anything over and above to stand out...will NEVER get you ahead.

In other words NOT busting your ass GUARANTEES you will not move ahead in life.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/schoolrules.asp not bills words

exactly! No one said they had to get $15 per hour.. The $15 originally was a bargaining chip for hopes of $11 or $12.

I've said it before but no one will listen.. in the 80's when I worked a min wage fast food job I was able to buy almost 4 gallons of gas with a hours wage but today the $7.25 barely buys 2 gallons. So common sense tells us that the cost of living is going up way faster than min wages.

Que the "well then go out and get a better paying job.." BS

He said above EVEN the HEAD manager at mcd only makes $15 per hour! Now tell me how that is going to support anyone at a "skilled job" level?

One of my theories is that people who are getting government money while working at these jobs have little motivation to quit and find better jobs because they are living a decent life on the government dollar.

Say for example you are a single mom working at McDonald's making $9/hr. Because you don't make very much you get food stamps, housing assistance, day car assistance, food assistance if you kid goes to school and energy assistance. Total your government money works out to the equivalent of making an additional $10 per hour so you are living the life of someone who is making $19/hr. If that is the case this person may have little motivation to try to find a job where they will make $13-$14/hr but because they make more and lose much if not all of their government money.

A friend of mine's sister is one of these people. She is 24 years old, healthy, in good physical shape and obviously capable of taking care of herself. She has a 3yr old daughter. She applied for welfare and gets $350 per month in food stamps, some cash (I'm not sure how much) and free health insurance. She then qualified for housing assistance. They told her they would pay up to $850 per month towards her rent and she had to pay any difference above or beyond that and if the place was less than that she had to co-pay $30 per month. The catch was that she had to work at least part time to get this. So she got a job working at some fast food place and only works about 20 hours per week. She moved into a 2 bedroom apartment and the government pays all but $30 of the rent. They also started giving her childcare money which she uses to pay one of her friends to watch her kid on the days she works.

So she barely works, yet lives in a nice apartment, has a car, has cable, internet, laptop, big screen TV, iPhone and dresses nicely. If you saw her walking down the street you would assume she was an average, everyday middle class mom. You would never guess she only works 20 hours per week flipping burgers.

She has zero interest in going to school or getting a better job or working more. Her job actually offers her more hours and she turns them down because if she makes much more money they will take away some of the welfare cash they give her. When I heard about this I was floored and from what I understand it is more common than you might realize.

Just to humor myself I went to McDonald's today for lunch. I went inside so I could get a decent look at the people working there. The manager is a guy I went to high school with and who graduated a year before me. I had seen him in here before and knew this. He has worked here since high school. I don't know how much he makes, but he is manager so it is likely in the $40K range. Of the remaining staff that I could see about half of them seemed to be high school age and the other half were adults. Not elderly, but people clearly in their 20's and 30's. I was a little surprised to see that many people of that age here.

Ok, I think I'm on board with all of this giving unskilled labor more money!

Let's do it!

And...oh wait a minute, the cost of living has went up right? And yet I can barely charge $29.99 for a paysite membership (I used to charge $34.99).

I CAN'T raise my price. Porn is free.

This isn't fair!!! People should just give me money because I haven't been able to raise my price since 2008. So I am falling fast behind the "cost of living". :(

I demand that people voluntarily pay me $39.99 a month to make it "fair" so I can make the same amount of money with the cost of living factored in.

Let's all do it! This is gonna be GREAT!

300 delusional bleeding hearts.

You bleeding hearts crack me up.

I guess in your world when someone starts work at McDonalds they are going to be there for life like some union job where as Robbie, myself, and others have said that you bust your ass while that those shitty jobs, acquire some skills, and then advance yourself whether at McDonalds (promotion) or somewhere else.

You do know those managers could always find another manager job elsewhere right? One that might offer better benefits, hourly or salaried wage, etc.? They do not HAVE to stay there as a fry cook or $15.00/hour shift manager whatever. They can choose to apply those skills elsewhere to advance their career.

I am honestly thinking you guys are now trolling for effect as you can't be this ignorant. Perhaps you have never owned a business, or had staff that you've had to pay. That could also be part of this. I can assure you that if you had, you're not going to be so willing to give someone $15.00/hour for answering a phone or taking out the garbage.

:disgust

Actually, if you talk to some of the lifers on government assistance, they can literally break this shit down for you dollar for dollar (if only they applied that skill to the real world). What you just described above is very true sadly.

You might not be able to raise the price, but you might sell a few more memberships if suddenly a few million people made an extra few bucks an hour. The group of people basically guaranteed to spend all the money they make

Wait a minute...... so now even $40,000.00 a year is not enough for these people?!?!!? They might be working too hard, and it's not fair again somehow to be making this as a wage either? Please explain to me what you think these fry cooks and managers of a fast food chain are supposed to be making.

:disgust

A friend of mine has a son who dated a girl and knocked her up so she married her. Her family is a bunch of deadbeats. Now she and he and their kid live with her parents and her sister all in one house. He has a job (interestingly enough at Walmart), but everyone else, including his wife, is on "disability." Getting government money is the family business. Apparently they tried to talk him into letting them try to get him on disability, but he refused. He knows his dad is already unhappy with how things have turned out, he might disown him if he went on disability.

That's a great theory. But I don't think McDonalds workers are exactly my target audience. And even if they were...they will simply go to PornHub like everybody else. Nice try though!

One thing for sure...it WILL raise the price of stuff for me. Because once McDonalds workers get a raise for their UNSKILLED labor staff...that means that skilled labor will need raises too. And then the price of everything goes up.

Except porn. :(

This country needs a reset button.

You say it's unskilled labor but the reality is that you would be fired as a cook if you tried it today without training.

You don't even know how to run the cash register.

:2 cents:

I guarantee you that if I worked the cash register it would take me about 2 seconds to figure it out. And cooking? Please.

I've always excelled at anything and everything I ever did. I'm sure you have too.

That is the difference.

And yes...it's fucking UNSKILLED labor all day long. No education, anybody can do it.

And by the way...I've never been "Fired" because I've never worked for anyone else. I have always been the guy who took the reigns and I outworked anyone who ever worked FOR me too. If I went to work at McDonalds, I'd own that franchise in a year.

If you think that it's "hard", then maybe I misjudged you.

Something like 25% of all US adults have worked at McDonald's.

Seems they did ok. The own franchises, they own business', they became doctors amd lawyers, they are famous athletes and actors. Many are super wealthy. Maybe there is no problem ???

Just shit money for shit food. That's all...
Only the customer loses because overpay for food from the vials ...

The food isn't the issue here.

The issue is do you pay a guy asking you what you want for your order over the speaker $15 an hour? I say HELL NO. He should be getting $3 an hour and they should be hiring young people to do that job to give them some workforce experience.

Anything more is insanity.

People that can easily be replaced by a kiosk should be paid more money.

Uhmmmm.....

What experience in MC?
In Poland, a worker in the MCD, has about $ 2 per hour.

Gaining experience, but probably only if he want to go collect rice in China ... Experience how to work for a dish of rice.

I almost forgot ... It teaches that no one else that can not be trusted, because in ten employees, only one will advance to the next level. Growing stress, competition, hatred, and all this for $ 2 per hour.
Rat Race, and it keeps the rats out there.

Sorry for my english but i still learning. Now too.:)

Now you see why there are so many broke dick mofos in adult. The rational and responses of some of the people in this thread is fucking mind boggling.

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh This is just too funny!!!

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh $3 per hour?? wow that is funny! I have a 21yr old daughter that works part time while she is in college. She works in retail stores cause the fast food industry pays shit as it is. So you want these teens to work at your fairyland MCD for $3 a hour to get what $70 a week after taxes? Are you going to pay them in monopoly money too?

Survival of the fittest. Life's tough, wear a helmet.

:2 cents:

A business does not exist for the sake of employing your kids and paying her enough to be on MTV cribs. They exist to make a profit selling their wares and stay in business. If your kid doesn't work there, they next one will. There is no shortage of people needing jobs.

The repeated rationale that a business should be thinking of anything beyond staying in business is absolutely comical. Their first priority is profit and staying afloat. The market and a person's skill level decides what employees are paid. If they need to entice workers they offer higher pay, or benefits to attract better candidates for the positions offered.

I am not going to pay someone $15.00/hour to flip a burger, answer a phone, or anything I can find someone unskilled off CL to come in and do with a day's worth of training. If you can be replaced by a CL ad, then you never had a skilled position in the first place and should be paid accordingly.

:disgust

This is actually an interesting post to me. When I was 18 years old I was working at Radio Shack and I hated it. I also felt kind of trapped there.

There was a guy that came in regularly and bought little parts. He dressed nice, had a nice car and appeared to be a pretty successful guy. One day we were talking and he tells me that he worked at Radio shack when he was my age and it gave him a good base to go on and do other things with.

That was almost like a light bulb going off in my head. It was kind of like the idea that there more out there and that this is just the beginning and far from the end. Form there pretty much every job I had I aspired to quit the day I started working there. I knew I was only there to learn new things and move up. My life took some strange turns including working as a music journalist, moving to a few different cities and eventually selling porn online, but during all of those times I have always looked for a way to improve and move up.

Sadly, a lot of people don't have that moment or they don't think about things like that. For many they just see it as the end of the line and the dead end job that they are stuck in.

"Survival of the fittest. Life's tough, wear a helmet."

Life is hard for those who want to be difficult.

Recently a friend on FB looking for a job, I gave him a couple of ways to make ... I got a clear answer, which I understand this - most people are not looking for money, just slavery, for little money, earning a fortune to someone. This is state of mind, and not that there is no work. Im too looking for a job, but just to be able to invest in my not profitable ideas ... Such a life, they are kicked because they like to be enslaved, I'm through life's ass kicked, because I put ideas than money ... life ... each has its own ..