I think there is nothing more frustrating and heart breaking than someone that tries to hold an honest job but is still living in poverty because they only make minimum wage or close to it. McDonolds only pays $7.25 an hour, which is currently the minimum wage in the US. I make as much as a whole crew and I struggle to get by. I can’t imagine how someone makes it on an income that low. God help them if they have children. The fact is, I can’t stop fast food companies from paying low wages, but I can eat somewhere else. I think that is something we need to be cognizant of. Do the establishments we frequent pay a “living wage”? A wage that someone can reasonably live on without assistance. It’s bad enough these companies are selling unhealthy food, but if they can’t take care of their employees, maybe our country is better off without them. I ask you, please don’t eat at restaurants like McDonalds, Burger King, Wendy’s, Taco Bell, KFC, Pizza Hut, Domino’s and Papa John’s. You can make a difference just by choosing where you spend your money. You can also go to lowpayisnotok.org and sign their petition.
So if the minimum wage is not enough, how much is enough? In Chicago, there is a group called FightFor15, which, as you may guess, is fighting for a wage of $15. If you worked 40 hours a week at $15 and took off two weeks a year, that would come out to exactly $30,000. How do you incentivize businesses to spend that much on their employees? McDonalds, for instance, might tell you they couldn’t afford to pay that much, but they have a huge marketing budget. I think they could afford to pay it if they lowered their marketing spend. What if people started going to businesses that paid a living wage? What if you could give them a sticker they could put on their door or a plaque on the wall so people would know this business values its employees and pays a living wage. If people stopped going to low wage paying businesses and started going to fair wage paying businesses, the increase in business might make it worth it for the fair wage paying business. And if a few businesses go out of business, they are likely fast food businesses that serve unhealthy food anyway.
Can you think of ways we can encourage businesses to pay a living wage?
