The Economics and Political Science Room
McDonald's:
Until last year, McDonald's had an employee resource web page that encouraged workers to apply for welfare benefits. This was of course because McDonald's realized it wasn't paying its workers enough to live on. The site was taken down after people noticed the irony of the nation's largest and most profitable corporation asking its employees to supplement their income in order for the corporation to remain "profitable."
It's worse than you think: about 52% of America's fast food workers are enrolled in public assistance programs (http://www.businessweek.com/articles...ide-of-welfare). Naturally, those on the right will blame the workers for this, but it's a completely irrational argument- employees do not set their own wages.
According to their own web site, McDonald's was able to return $4.9 BILLION to its shareholders last year (http://news.mcdonalds.com/Corporate/...leaseid=123043) while suffering a total operating expense (including labor) of just $2.9 billion. Of that 2.9 billion, about 30% went to workers for a total of about $1 billion.
So- a corporation that currently spends $1 billion on labor can't afford to spend 1.1 billion, but they can return 4.9 billion to investors??
Due to inadequate wages, McDonald's employees were subsidized $7 Billion in 2013 (http://www.businessweek.com/articles...ide-of-welfare). That's $7 BILLION of our welfare budget going straight into the hands of McDonald's.
It is estimated that if McDonald's were to give all of its workers a raise to $15 an hour, the price of a Big Mac would increase anywhere from ZERO (http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworst...-hour-nothing/) to $1 (http://www.businessweek.com/articles...ers-got-raises).
Wal-Mart:
Not surprisingly, Wal-Mart has jumped on the bandwagon, joyfully allowing the American taxpayer to supplement the income of underpaid workers to the tune of $5800 per employee per year (http://www.businessweek.com/articles...arts-low-wages).
What does this translate into? One government report has estimated that a single Wal-Mart store in Wisconsin, employing 300 workers, would cost the taxpayers between $900,000 and $1,7 million (http://democrats.edworkforce.house.g...rt-May2013.pdf).
Another study suggests that if Wal-mart were to increase its prices across the board by 1.1%, they could afford to pay all of its minimum wage workers $12.50 per hour instead of minimum wage. If the entire cost of this wage increase were passed on to the consumer, it would mean we'd all be spending an extra $0.46 per trip (http://www.businessinsider.com/what-a-walmart-wage-hike-would-cost-you-2013-7).
Nationally, Wal-Mart's low wage policies cost taxpayers about $104 million a year (http://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-taxp...art-execs-pay/).
Summary:
The low pay policies of McDonald's and Wal-Mart combined cost American Taxpayers approximately $ 7.1 BILLION last year.
The real welfare queens are not citizens who can't afford to feed their families, or people who do not want to work. The real welfare queens are big corporations who can easily afford to pay decent wages, but who allow the taxpayer to pay those wages instead.
We should ALL be furious.
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Originally Posted by Cigar
