It more often results from oppression.

And then where will those folks get food from?

Guess that's what you would say to the women and kids who worked in sweat shops a hundred years ago.

Don't know a lot of McDonald's workers, do you?

Historically, when abuses occurred in sweatshops, the workers took a hand in redressing the issue, before the government could even evaluate which side of their bread was buttered.

I do not make "low wages". I have been given NO instructions on how to milk the welfare system by Walmart, nor has anyone I know who works there.

I'm curious how one abuses workers with low wages. A worker's effort is worth a certain amount to Walmart. No business can pay its employees more than the value of their industry, not if it wants to survive. Wages are artificially inflated by the abomination known as "minimum wage".

What abuses low-wage workers is do-gooders and their feel-good, vote-mongering "minimum wage", and its related monetary inflation.

Tell me, do you abuse Walmart with low prices by buying the $288 TV for $98 on Black Friday? Do you ever abuse Walmart with low prices by buying the cheapest version of an item they have there? Don't you ever offer to pay Walmart *more* than the price they ask for an item? Don't you ever offer to pay Walmart *more* for an item, just so some bleeding heart somewhere doesn't feel you're abusing them by not giving them more money than their product is worth to you?

And I repeat, it comes out of your pocket because your representatives legislated such programs.

Such is the pricetag of your conscience. But, you make us all share in that price.

This wouldn't be a problem if the government didn't legislate welfare programs.

You suggest that McDonald's owns the people who work at McDonald's, as if the employees are no longer free; as if McDonald's owes them something beyond the value of their labor to McDonald's.

McDonald's would be stupid and foolish to pay an employee more than his labor is worth to them. Then again, Walmart does it...

Oh, whoopee... Mensan... top 50% of the population...

A moron has an IQ of 60. An idiot has an IQ of 45. No one has measured the IQ of a progressive; the scale doesn't support negative numbers.

poverty often results from irresponsibility.

You're not.

If McDonald's doesn't pay enough... don't work there. Then their subsistence will be entirely upon the gov't and thereby your tax dollars. Such is the price of legislation and regulation.
It is not McDonald's fault that they can collect food stamps on your tax dollars, but yours. If there were no food stamps program, your tax dollars would not be spent on it, and would be available for other foolish and wasteful expenditures. Don't make McDonald's the villain of your conscience.

Orrr they can find a higher paying job. If they can't, again, thank government.

And McDonald's shouldn't be shucking it's employees off onto the government welfare programs. I don't want to pay their labor costs.

When you apply it as a blanket to the poor I can't help but wonder.

I doubt that the stereotype being painted here of the $300 headphones and expensive sneakers is true for most who work at McDonald's.

Historically Americans have stepped in when abuses occur in sweat shops, for example. Today McDonald's, Walmart, and much of the related industries are abusing their workers with low wages and teaching them how to rip off the welfare system. IOW, I don't want to subsidize private corporations.

Don't count on that.

I was kind of ticked off last night, again at work (sorry, khalling, when I get a life, I'll stop talking about Walmart :( ) ...

A guy I work with, a nice guy from Ethiopia, we'll call him "M", was assigned the task of collecting empty pallets from around the store, and crushing empty cardboard boxes, which included making a bale when the baler was full.

He came to me to make the bale for him, and as I was busy stocking the pets department, I told him to tell our assistant manager, we'll call her "G", and she would get someone who knew how to make a bale to do it. So the night wears on, and somehow they get a bale made.
About an hour before quitting time this morning, G comes to me and asks me to take care of the cardboard and pallets and clean up the gm receiving area.
There's only one cart of cardboard to put in the baler, but the floor is strewn with baling wire; reusable boxes are stacked precariously on a pallet next to the baler and in front of the exit doors. A stack of pallets is blocking the exit doors, with the bale they made behind it, and two more stacks of pallets in front of the trash compactor.

Okay, so I have the headache of straightening things out, but then I have to put on my coat because it's below freezing outside with 20 mph winds, and I have to pull this tremendously heavy bale on a pallet jack the entire length of the store (outside) to the storage area, as well as the stacks of pallets. We're talking two or three blocks distance.

I was cussing the whole time; I had to stop 3 times to catch my breath pulling the bale alone, then it got stuck in a pothole right where we store them for pick up.

When I got back inside, I was told that they usually use the forklift to move them... which I'm not licensed to use (in spite of having owned and operated my own for years, and used those of my previous employer).

So I was mad, because I kept thinking of Atlas Shrugged and the 20th Century Motor Company. Walmart hires antiques, retards, cripples, the mentally handicapped, and the just plain lazy, and then expect anyone who shows a bit of work ethic, and/or creative intelligence to pick up the slack.

M makes half again as much as I do, because he's been there 6 years to my almost-2. Yet, because I show a willingness to tackle whatever job I'm given, because I use my reason to solve problems... I get extra work.

Another example. At my urging, the store got a new propane buffer, superior to the electric ones we'd been using. I was the only one using it, but, one of the things it does is blow dust bunnies out from under the shelves (something the management thinks A Good Thing), requiring a re-sweep afterwards. I was informed by the rest of the floor crew, jointly, that if it kicked out dust bunnies, I would be the one who had to sweep them up. I switched back to using the electric buffers. Why should I make extra work for myself? So the floor's not as shiny; nobody but me seems to care anyway.
(Last Sunday, an AM asked why we weren't using the propane buffer; I'd been assigned to help stock Dairy that day, while the two new guys were buffing with the electrics. I volunteered to use the propane buffer while one of them stocked... I was told that they didn't have any experience stocking Dairy... neither did I, til they put me there the first time...)

The funny thing is, other people who were similarly screwed have been trying to warn me about this since I started working there.

So, I wouldn't count on a given store, even McDonald's, recognizing competence and rewarding it.

(sometimes I feel like Garrison Keillor...)

Walmart isn't either. However when management recommends that their employees avail themselves of public programs to subsidize the low wages they get it comes out of my pocket as a taxpayer.

Food stamps and other benefits are out of my pocket as a taxpayer. I don't want to subsidize the workers for any company.

Ah, so you would call a Mensan a "moron" if they did something you thought wasn't up to snuff with how you think they should run their lives?

Tell me again why McDonald's concern is whether the workers "have" to get food stamps?

He probably knows a lot of poor people...