Kicking in an open door: McDonald’s finds out for themselves, it’s impossible to live on their wages
(Translated from a Dutch language article in the Algemeen Dagblad.)
In a financial budget plan developed for their own workers, McDonald’s found out the hard way that it’s difficult, if not impossible, to live of the minimum wage given by the hamburger giant. Their answer? Take a second full time job… And save on heating… and gas…
The Golden Arch company developed a budget program in cooperation with the Visa credit card company and posted in on a website. On this website are tips an calculations posted as examples of a monthly budget, corrected to the lowest paying job at McDonald’s . According to this calculation that person, after subtraction of fixed costs, can spend 27 dollars a day on personal expenses and food. So how does McDonald’s comes at this figure?
First and foremost by advising their employees to take a second job. More precisely a full time job! McDonald’s themselves think it’s impossible to live healthy on their wages alone. The minimum wage in the US is 7.72 dollars an hour, what comes after subtraction a taxes at 1000 to 1100 dollars for a 40-hour work week. The lowest McDonald’s salary is only a few dollar cents above this threshold. Anyone who wants to raise their salary to the level of 2060 dollar a month, given in the example, will have to work another 34 hours a week on a second job, in the case if that job also pays only the minimum wage.
No heat…
The second way to save money is saving on heat. Apparently McDonald’s think that their employees don’t have a need to heat themselves cause in that post in the given budget example that figure is…. zero. Is that taken care of in the monthly rent of 600 dollars? Possible, but a slim chance since the 2012 average rent price of an house in the US is 1.048 dollar an month. You’re really in trouble in New York city where the average is over 3.000 dollars…
No health insurance, no gas…
McDonald’s thinks that the average worker can find an insurance for no more than 20 dollars a month… Quite cheap given that the insurance McDonald’s offers their employees is 61 dollars a month! That itself is minimum insurance without payment for medicine, glasses and dental care. In closing another strange thought; McDonald’s think their workers all own a car they have to pay off, but those care drive on free gas because those figures are completely absent…