A Week in the Life of a McDonald’s Cashier • Hacker News Board

Re: A Week in the Life of a McDonald’s Cashier

#671

Post by username90 » Fri, Dec 06, 2019, 4:28 PM UTC

virmundi wrote: post #403

nlfwhulsdhouv wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Health care. Private companies are overcharging people and have made health care(hospitals and medication) unreachable if you don't have your costs subsidized by your employer. Medicare for all is one of the most important policies to alleviate pressure on lower-income people. Even for the middle class, the freedom to change jobs or take time off without fear of disaster will take such a load off of society.

If we implement it like the Scandinavian countries, the average poor family would still have to pay 600-700 per month. I believe that would be about 2/3 of her monthly income.

No they wouldn't, taxes don't just pay for healthcare in Scandinavia it also pays for free daycare, free college and a year of state paid parental leave.

Re: A Week in the Life of a McDonald’s Cashier

#672

Post by bnjms » Fri, Dec 06, 2019, 4:31 PM UTC

larrywright wrote: post #43

jdkee wrote: post #9

Unions, unions, unions.

There’s a compelling argument that unions, combined with the fight for $15 minimum wage, will do nothing but make the situation worse. Nobody is going to pay $20 for a burger and fries. McDonald’s would either have to go almost entirely automated or cease to exist as a company.

They would have to accelerate their automation of front of house. But other than that they won't get rid of the rest of the workers. One day they might work out how to automate some things but given the broken blizzard machine is a meme I don't think McD has the ability to automate anything else. So they McD will move upscale which is fine. They don't have playplaces anymore and they're no-ones favorite burger anymore. Lots can be said against unions but they have their place and a single company union sounds like it could work here.

Re: A Week in the Life of a McDonald’s Cashier

#673

Post by DataGata » Fri, Dec 06, 2019, 4:32 PM UTC

gwbas1c wrote: post #474

kevinqiu1 wrote: post #230

Even though it seems like she lives in an urban area (or urban enough to be squeezed by rising home prices), the public transit is so poor that she spends 3-5x more time getting to work without a car than with one. Sometimes she can't even get home. That's crazy, the car dependence of America means that you need to pay for insurance + a car to even function in society. That is the opposite of freedom

Makes me think there is a business opportunity in urban areas?

The economics of public transit essentially ask for government involvement: operational costs are almost never paid for by fare prices, but instead are essentially subsidized. If the bus/train lines are doing well, you often get huge clusters of malls/retail/commercial buildings surrounding them, and they of course reap the benefits without paying any extra costs.

However, there are things like the Dollar Vans in New York that do actually fulfill the niche. They're also sometimes illegal.

Re: A Week in the Life of a McDonald’s Cashier

#674

Post by agumonkey » Fri, Dec 06, 2019, 4:41 PM UTC

systemtest wrote: post #582

cixter wrote: post #577

Coming from Norway, this article is horrendous. I can never understand the mentality that lies behind all of the arguments most you guys are presenting here - defending the employers shit salary and rights. You guys know that McDonalds manages to run in countries with decent wages as well, right? And that maybe a company with a yearly global profit of over 10 billion dollars might be able to afford giving their emplo…

I'm not from Norway but the Netherlands. If you have a fulltime job at McDonalds, the only way to live on that wage is with heavy subsidies from the government. You will need healthcare subsidy, rent subsidy, social housing, various municipal arrangements and perhaps even go to the "voedselbank" (food bank, free food charity). So while you can live on a McDonalds income, it's only because your fellow citizens are chi…

It's a bit odd to think that fast food is indirectly sustained through national funding.

One tiny benefit of these kind of jobs, if you ever need something to do to earn money, they'll most probably hire you.

But it's not a great thing.

Re: A Week in the Life of a McDonald’s Cashier

#675

Post by Consultant32452 » Fri, Dec 06, 2019, 5:01 PM UTC

taurath wrote: post #615

Consultant32452 wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like there's a lot of assumptions in that suggestion that I don't necessarily accept. The biggest is the assumption that the minimum wage sets the market rather than the market setting the minimum wage. I believe the market conditions during a period of time have heavy influence on the legislated minimum wage. Imagine if 50 years ago you could easily import millions of impoverished people willing to work for a…

The market doesn’t set the minimum wage. The market actively pushes wages down, as we’ve seen even with a very small unemployment rate wages haven’t gone up.

What do you think the market is aside from the cumulative actions of all of the individuals in the economy such as workers (voters) and businesses?

Why do you believe workers/voters were able to demand a higher minimum wage 50 years ago? I explained what I think changed, I'm curious to know your thoughts.

Re: A Week in the Life of a McDonald’s Cashier

#676

Post by Consultant32452 » Fri, Dec 06, 2019, 5:05 PM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #477

taurath wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try at the very minimum matching to inflation, and adjusting the current wage to what it would be if it were. Then all you have to decide is whether the minimum wage should’ve been a thing in the first place.

The “living wage” would be different for someone with no dependents and no health problems than someone who has health problems and/or kids.

When I read "living wage" I parse it very literally. It sounds like something close to "capable of purchasing just enough food calories for one person to live." It certainly would not afford you luxuries like having children.

I'm sure that's not what most people are intending to communicate, but I think that's a good starting point to demonstrate how meaningless the phrase "living wage" really is.

Re: A Week in the Life of a McDonald’s Cashier

#677

Post by dennisgorelik » Fri, Dec 06, 2019, 5:07 PM UTC

She is trying to shoot herself in the foot by supporting minimum wage limit increase.

If minimum wage will go up to $15/hour -- her prospective employers will fire her, because it would be better to either automate her service away or just hire a more skillful worker.

Re: A Week in the Life of a McDonald’s Cashier

#678

Post by stevenwoo » Fri, Dec 06, 2019, 5:08 PM UTC

cixter wrote: post #577

Coming from Norway, this article is horrendous. I can never understand the mentality that lies behind all of the arguments most you guys are presenting here - defending the employers shit salary and rights. You guys know that McDonalds manages to run in countries with decent wages as well, right? And that maybe a company with a yearly global profit of over 10 billion dollars might be able to afford giving their emplo…

In America, people in charge of policy love to talk about "personal responsibility" as if that by itself can overcome structural issues in our economic system, Texas is pretty proud of itself for low taxes and making people fend for themselves, including pregnant women https://www.texastribune.org/2019/12/06/extraordinary-danger...

It's also postulated in a recent book that a primary belief held by supreme court justice Clarence Thomas that the best way to improve the lot of African Americans is to make life as difficult as possible politically for them so they work harder(!) - this aligns his views on a lot of subjects with the conservative side of interpreting the Constitution but he's not really consistent on the latter as much as his belief. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/23/books/review-enigma-clare...

Re: A Week in the Life of a McDonald’s Cashier

#679

Post by bob1029 » Fri, Dec 06, 2019, 5:10 PM UTC

asdff wrote: post #572

bob1029 wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue it's substantially easier to produce a fully-automatic McDonalds than it is to produce an autonomous car that can actually deal with any reasonable situation in the real world. With a McDonalds restaurant, you can control your environment almost perfectly. If you throw away the kitchen that was designed to be used by humans, and then develop a kitchen never intended to be used by humans, you can drop a…

So then what happens when someone makes a mess of the dining area or the bathrooms? I've seen roombas encounter dog excrement—not pretty. Or if a fight breaks out among customers? Most Mcdonalds operate pretty lean, sometimes two people. I can't imagine a complex automation setup and hiring a pricey/hr guy to service it every week is going to be cheaper than two guys on minimum wage and no benefits.

Perhaps you simply disallow that customers be able to enter the actual restaurant at all, and operate it more like a gigantic drive-thru/walk-up vending machine.

Re: A Week in the Life of a McDonald’s Cashier

#680

Post by Spooky23 » Fri, Dec 06, 2019, 5:17 PM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #651

Spooky23 wrote: post #644

Earlier quoted context omitted.

McDonalds is the place where you can get something like a cheeseburger for a dollar without getting food poisoning. McDonalds was a high quality product at one time. There’s no regulatory environment that prevents exploitation of the workforce, so doing so is the low risk choice. The company chose a low quality bar and competitive pressure forces them to mercilessly attack cost.

Back of the napkin math. If we assume that a McDonalds is open 16 hours a day and they have an average of 4 people every hour. 16 hours x 4 people x 7 days x 52 weeks Equals about 2400 hours a year. How much could they raise the hourly rate of their employees and raise prices before the demand went down and still be profitable if they are only making $150K now? At what point does it not make sense to invest $1 - $3 m…

That is McDonald's problem.

They may need to look at the business and franchise model. They have a fubar business with hundreds of SKUs. 5 Guys is able to make money on a freshly cooked burger, higher standards for quality and higher cost. Make a "McDonald's Classic" concept that cooks real food at higher prices.

Again, McDonald's makes a business decision to have a system that encourages franchisees to utilize labor at the lowest cost possible because it is the lowest risk decision for them. For the larger company, the profitability struggles of the operators aren't a world-ending problem -- they own the real estate assets, and get to be an exclusive supplier and pull their percentage of gross sales first.

From my POV, I don't care a whit about McDonald's -- as a human it's awful that people are treated the way that they are, and as a taxpayer it's awful that society as a whole gets to pick up the pieces when hard working people fail and end up dependent on social services for survival. If McDonald's business can't deliver, that's their problem. The demand for food isn't going anywhere and a competitor will fill the void.