BTW - He is getting 1200 a month for disability from the Air Force... which is only 14.4k a year and that is at 70% of his pay so he was only making about 20k a year being married and paying everything out of pocket. This is after 6 years of service and skipped a few bottom ranks too.

Minimum wage in Australia is $16.

There is a price for that though.

Higher cost of living.

yes. full disclosure. since im still student status (i havent earned my aircrew wings yet, still need to go to sere and mech school). i still live on base, so i live in the barracks (which is paid for), and if i eat at the chow hall on base, i get 3 meals a day (no seconds though   ). i also get medical. 

according to my leave and earning statement my total monotary componsation, including both direct and indirect compensation (meaning my actually salary+ benefits). is about $36,000.

but yes essentially my only bills right now are phone, internet (no TV), and transportation.

so as you were alluding to, its not too bad of a gig, if your single and living on base.

Would fire every last employee that walked off the job if I owned a Mcdonald's franchise. Would teach a valuable lesson ...

When those former employees come back to the store the following day to find that there jobs have already been replaced, they will come to the realization that "hey, maybe minimum wage or slightly above it was not so bad a deal considering how easy and effortless this job was."

Your average Mcdonald's worker is in the 18-25 range ... of course you aren't going to make much money during this period of your life, you have virtually no skills and even less experience. The skills things is not your fault as schools suck, and they will only get worse the more money that is dumped into them, but still you have no experience at this point in your life regardless. 

I'm 24, and I make 9.50 working retail (3+ years in same job) and I am happy to make it. Is nice to have a little job while I aquire skills (well... in theory ... like I said schools suck) in college. I could never imagine walking off my job. Also, I am actually required to have at least some skills in sales and upselling on my job ... I have never had a Mcdonald's employee try to upsell me on anything. They have pre-recorded messages play at most of these places now to do that for them ... kind of makes me wonder what they are even doing most of the time in these restaurants.

In a perfect world, we would not have a minimum wage at all, and market forces would determine the real value of your labor. Also, unemployment would probably dissapear completely as well ... but, like I said, perfect world.

As others have said, get a second job, go to school, or do really well and get promoted (managers at fast food places don't do all that bad for a job that doesn't require a degree).

I think the main problem is that people spend their money badly.  I know tons of "poor" people who are "living paycheck to paycheck" that have smart phones and car payments and eat out and drink Starbucks every day.  It just doesn't make any sense.  I worked a job for $9 an hour (one dollar higher than CA minimum wage) for about two years, rarely hitting 40 hours a week--usually something like 32.  After all that I had several thousand dollars in savings.  Yet every single other person working at that place with me would come in on payday and rabidly snatch up their paychecks, saying they didn't have a dime to their name and needed to pay bills.  They always complained about not having anything but always found it in their budget to prioritize iPads and Macbooks.  They were always at zero, and I think that's incredibly sad.

Lol what a joke. How can you strike and make demands when you work a job a chimp could do? You have no leverage when you are that replaceable.

Here in Suffolk County, Long Island a cop starts at ~$48k/year and top base pay is ~$100k/year.

You can't live on minimum wage comfortably at all. Yearly income needs to adjust for todays economy.

$15 is too much, but would $10-$11 seems fair.

As for the topic.


Fire them all. Why should they make $15/hr flipping burgers or grabbing a new box of frozen fries out of the walk in freezer?

I wonder how many of them are blowing $80/month on a smartphone.

how i feel about it? hungry!