May 5, 2015

"Who could have guessed in the mid-1980s, at a pair of otherwise forgettable McDonald’s restaurants some 20 miles apart, that two bushy-haired teenagers working the burger grills would become Wisconsin’s most powerful Republicans?"

The first sentence of a NYT article titled "Wisconsin, Politics and Faith Bind Scott Walker and Paul Ryan."

Last 2 paragraphs:
Rita Butke, who was Mr. Walker’s shift manager at the McDonald’s here in the 1980s, said she has enthusiastically supported both Mr. Walker and Mr. Ryan because of the values she associates with their low-wage, burger-flipping days.

“There’s a sense of responsibility and humility that you get from a job where you earned only $4.25 an hour,” said Ms. Butke, who is now manager at the Delavan store. “They both learned for themselves how much a dollar meant.”

130 comments:

Scott said...

Well, how much does a dollar mean?

MadisonMan said...

Paul Ryan has much much better hair.

CatherineM said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Brando said...

A nice contrast to the "dead broke" Clintons who have to give million dollar speeches to "pay the bills".

The Dems are really planning to spike their populist strategy for next year?

MadisonMan said...

I was curious to read the comments on that article. Alas, the NYTimes is not allowing them.

DKWalser said...

What's too often lost in the debate over a "living wage" is that most people hold minimum wage jobs only at the start of their working career. Like Ryan and Walker, after gaining work experience and learning to show up on time and work hard while there, most workers move on to better paying jobs with more responsibility. By raising the minimum wage to a "living wage", many potential new workers will be priced out of their first job and will find it much harder to demonstrate they are qualified for those "better paying jobs with more responsibility."

Brando said...

"I agree. That's what I told my rich boss as he worked so hard to get his kids the best connected summer jobs. I think he cheated his kids out of a lot of normal and valuable experiences."

I have a rich friend who said he would never let his kids work "crummy" jobs like fast food, because they won't really need the money and could better spend their time at connected jobs that pay off much more down the road. I think it's the wrong attitude--a tough fast food job helps kill any entitlement complex the kid might have, shows you just how rough some people have it, makes you work hard for each dollar, and serves to warn you what sort of work is available if you don't take advantage of your educational opportunities. My friend should have felt the same, considering he worked at Wendys in high school and became successful.

n.n said...

So, it's appreciation of labor (and human life) that establishes the difference between Republicans and Democrats?

Democrats will always be able to fall back on sale of indulgences (e.g. dissociation of risk, selective exclusion) and redistribution of opiates (e.g. clunkers, phones, insurance) in order to suppress human response and dignity.

Brando said...

"What's too often lost in the debate over a "living wage" is that most people hold minimum wage jobs only at the start of their working career."

The populist Left argues that increasingly these jobs are being filled with adults who are working for their sole source of income.

Regardless, the minimum wage problem is that every job has only a certain "value" (measured in dollars the job is worth to the employer) and if the "cost" of having someone at that job (in salary, benefits, uniforms, training, risk of loss, etc.) exceeds the job's "value" then the employer simply won't hire. We can argue about whether the employer is correct in measuring the cost and value of the job, or if the value can be increased with more efficiencies, but you can't get around the fact that too high a cost means fewer hires and more layoffs. Whether someone can "live" on the wage is irrelevant.

walter said...

Must have been later 80's. Everyone where I worked started at $3.35/hr in '83. If we were good...$.05 raise was in the offing...

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

Doubtless the employees who report to Ms. Butke are proud to know that their low wages are supplemented by a sense of responsibility and humility.

Robert Cook said...

"What's too often lost in the debate over a 'living wage' is that most people hold minimum wage jobs only at the start of their working career."

And you know this...how? Even if this were true at some time, now, as more well-paying jobs with benefits are sent overseas--where "well-paid" and "benefits" alike are less costly than here--minimum-wage jobs are becoming more and more the only jobs many people get get.

"...after gaining work experience and learning to show up on time and work hard while there, most workers move on to better paying jobs with more responsibility. By raising the minimum wage to a 'living wage,' many potential new workers will be priced out of their first job and will find it much harder to demonstrate they are qualified for those 'better paying jobs with more responsibility.'"

See my comment above. To get these "better paying jobs with more responsibility," Americans are going to have to accept they must leave here and move elsewhere. Increasingly, they won't find them here.

Robert Cook said...

"Whether someone can 'live' on the wage is irrelevant."

It's not fucking irrelevant to the working person!

walter said...

"The populist Left argues that increasingly these jobs are being filled with adults who are working for their sole source of income."

Due in part to our economically illiterate prez sets the tone for a shit recovery. How'd that stimulus work?

Rusty said...

And you know this...how?


Studies show....... No really if you aren't advancing in your fast food career then you aren't cut out for a fast food career. Most minimum wage jobs are stop overs for better paying jobs. If you keep seeing the same face in the drive up window for ten years that's the manager. Everyone else either advances out or goes into sheltered workshops.


--minimum-wage jobs are becoming more and more the only jobs many people get get.


And you know this how?





Gabriel said...

@Eric the Fruit Bat:Doubtless the employees who report to Ms. Butke are proud to know that their low wages are supplemented by a sense of responsibility and humility.

When I held those jobs, I not only learned responsibility and humility, I also learned what I needed to know to get better jobs, as well as what I might need to fall back on.

I also learned that fast-food managers work on salary and so they take on a lot more hours, because the company doesn't pay managers overtime and it saves money. I also learned that labor is by far the dominant cost and how much it costs just to keep the door open even if there aren't any customers.

You might've learned the same things, if you had taken those kinds of jobs.

garage mahal said...

McDonalds is as far as Ryan and Walker made it in the real world.

Patrick said...

Years ago, McDonalds had an ad campaign in which they highlighted former employees that went on to some prominence. I think it was a local campaign, but I thought out was pretty cool.

Gabriel said...

@Robert Cook:minimum-wage jobs are becoming more and more the only jobs many people get get.

BLS says you're wrong:

"The percentage of hourly paid workers earning the federal minimum wage or less declined from 4.7 percent in 2012 to 4.3 percent in 2013. This remains well below the figure of 13.4 percent in 1979, when data were first collected on a regular basis."

Don't lie, Robert Cook. It doesn't help you.

Brando said...

"It's not fucking irrelevant to the working person!"

You know full well what I mean--it is irrelevant to whether the employer gets enough value out of the work to pay the cost of hiring someone.

If I offer to shovel your driveway, and you would be willing to pay as much as $40 to not have to shovel it yourself, and I tell you that "I can't live on being paid any less than $50 to shovel your driveway" then would you pay me $50? No, you wouldn't. And if the government passed a law saying that you couldn't pay me less than $50 to shovel your driveway, guess what--you won't be paying me to shovel your driveway.

damikesc said...

A nice contrast to the "dead broke" Clintons who have to give million dollar speeches to "pay the bills".

And whose daughter is spectacularly wealthy in spite of no discernible talent whatsoever.

Ditto Hillary's brother, who is also quite wealthy and is even LESS talented than Hillary's daughter.

The GOP would be wise to mention their hangers on CONSTANTLY. Who you choose to associate with speaks largely of your character.

What's too often lost in the debate over a "living wage" is that most people hold minimum wage jobs only at the start of their working career. Like Ryan and Walker, after gaining work experience and learning to show up on time and work hard while there, most workers move on to better paying jobs with more responsibility. By raising the minimum wage to a "living wage", many potential new workers will be priced out of their first job and will find it much harder to demonstrate they are qualified for those "better paying jobs with more responsibility."

And there is no such thing as a "living wage" because costs of items have to ALSO increase to cover the increased costs the living wage provides.

People need to realize the minimum wage is actually $0.

Because it is to the point where McDonald's would likely be more profitable having virtually no employees but plenty of robots.

damikesc said...

McDonalds is as far as Ryan and Walker made it in the real world.

One is a Senator and the other is your governor.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

Gabriel, one of the things you didn't learn, apparently, is how not to make a rash assumption that makes you look like an idiot.

And you might also want to brush up a bit on the humility.

lemondog said...

Uh, oh.....waiting for NYT article linking them to reason that McD is currently strugglying...

damikesc said...

And you know this...how? Even if this were true at some time, now, as more well-paying jobs with benefits are sent overseas--where "well-paid" and "benefits" alike are less costly than here--minimum-wage jobs are becoming more and more the only jobs many people get get.

Yet discussions of limiting immigration to insure American jobs aren't lost is verboten in America today.

And, Robert, if, say, McDonald's has its overhead double due to a massive increase in the minimum wage, can you guess what the food will end up costing to make up the difference?

...or how many people will no longer be working AT ALL?

I almost laugh at hearing the same people who demand a higher minimum wage whine that their current terrible job doesn't give them flexibility with their schedule. If somebody is paying you more than your labor is worth, they will gain value by having you work in less pleasant times.

Will said...

Give a thug a Filet o' Fish and you feed him for a day.

Teach a politician how to grill a Filet o' Fish for $4.25 an hour and you feed him for Life…


True dat

walter said...

"Give a thug a Filet o' Fish"
..and they'll loot and set store on fire.

furious_a said...

"What's too often lost in the debate over a "living wage" is that most people hold minimum wage jobs only at the start of their working career."

Dynamic Scoring and Longitudinal Studies are beyond most liberals' skillsets.

They also seem conflate "living wage" with "career wage". More opportunities for client dependency, graft and community organizing (but I repeat myself) that way.

furious_a said...

The real Minimum Wage is $0.

jr565 said...

If 15 dollars is the minimum wage, all other wages will have to be raised so that working at Mcdonalds as a fry cook is not as good as working at Walmart. 15 dollar an hour jobs are a step up from the 4 dollar an hour jobs. If we made 15 the minimum those other jobs would need to be 25. And then the 25 dollar an hour job would need to be 40.

furious_a said...

$3.35/hr in '83. If we were good...$.05 raise was in the offing...

$2.65/hr in '77. Waiters shared some of their tips when I bused their section, could get to up $4/hr. Bartenders shared theirs if we stayed late and broke down the bar and polished the brass railings, could get up to $6. When the dishwashers didn't show up...TIME-AND-A-HALF!

For a kid putting gas in a '72 Pinto it felt like real money.

Brando said...

"The real Minimum Wage is $0."

Pretty much. If you really want to do something about wages, find ways to make it easier and cheaper to hire (e.g., reduce the non-salary part of the costs of hiring so it's cheaper to keep an employee) so the labor market gets tight enough to drive up wages. Or, at least raise the earned income tax credit to subsidize wages via the treasury if you're so concerned about living wages--don't require employers to do your social work for you! Otherwise maybe the government should force you to pay me what I need to live on and I'll shovel your driveway.

Etienne said...

I started picking berries in Orient, Oregon (Japanese Farms) when I was 12, we got 50 cents a crate. I had to do 50 crates a day, or my father would be mad when I got home.

That was usually 5am to 5pm with breaks for rain and bus travel. $25 a day may not sound like much, but McDonalds only paid $2.00 an hour, and you had to be at least 14.

But even at 14, you couldn't work more than 4 hours a day at fast food joints, due to child labor laws.

My brother and I formed a team picking berries, and we could strip a field faster than the farmers could load their trucks by the time we were 15.

Stoop labor, but it paid well. Gas was only 25 cents a gallon back then.

Anyway, I went from the berry farms to the cannery at Gresham, when I turned 16. Paid for all my school clothes and supplies, as well as gas money for my old Desoto.

You can learn a lot in the berry fields, and the most important was not to become a bum. The bums we picked with were bused-in from downtown Portland, and they only worked long enough to pay for a meal and a bottle of MD 20/20.

I remember buying one old guy an ice cream cone at the Dairy Queen we always stopped at on the way home. He took a couple licks and threw it out the window. My brother and I couldn't stop laughing. At the time I didn't know about lactose intolerance...

Brando said...

"If 15 dollars is the minimum wage, all other wages will have to be raised so that working at Mcdonalds as a fry cook is not as good as working at Walmart. 15 dollar an hour jobs are a step up from the 4 dollar an hour jobs. If we made 15 the minimum those other jobs would need to be 25. And then the 25 dollar an hour job would need to be 40."

I'm sure that's a feature, not a bug, to the populists. A lot of the support for higher minimum wages comes from unions (whose members make more than minimum wage) because their own wage scales are based on a multiple of the minimums, so if the minimum goes up so does the union wage.

And the people supporting this are too young or too forgetful to recall that inflation can easily spiral out of control as it did in the '70s.

Gabriel said...

@Coupe:I started picking berries in Orient, Oregon (Japanese Farms) when I was 12, we got 50 cents a crate. I had to do 50 crates a day, or my father would be mad when I got home.

That was usually 5am to 5pm with breaks for rain and bus travel. $25 a day may not sound like much, but McDonalds only paid $2.00 an hour, and you had to be at least 14.

But even at 14, you couldn't work more than 4 hours a day at fast food joints, due to child labor laws.


Luxury.

I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our mother would kill us, and dance about on our graves singing 'Hallelujah.'

Kelly said...

Brando, my daughters boyfriend comes from a very wealthy family. Their rule is if the kids don't play a sport in high school they have to work. So when the boy quit his sport last summer he had to go find a job. He works at a car wash after school and on weekends. He did it all through the winter even when it was 10 degrees out. I'd say he already has a leg up on everyone else his age considering none of his friends work.

Etienne said...

Gabriel said...Luxury

Ha!

walter said...

"the people supporting this are too young or too forgetful..."

They could always watch Venezuela in in real-time...

furious_a said...

You can learn a lot in the berry fields...

Our kitchen and bus staff were a microcosm of 1970s American Diplomatic collapse. The dishwashers and food prep staff were either Iranian college students one step ahead of SAVAK or Viet or Cambodian refugees. The Lead bus...well, man was a former ARVN sergeant who taught himself Spanish so he could communicate with the line cooks and busboys.

furious_a said...

McDonald's?

We all gotta start somewhere.

Franklin said...

"And the people supporting this are too young or too forgetful to recall that inflation can easily spiral out of control as it did in the '70s."

I think they're actually counting on that. Remember that inflation is what the Upper Middle Class of the DC exurbs wants more than anything, because inflation means that their townhomes will be worth that much more. If they've been smart and refinanced their mortgages recently, then they're going to be doubly in clover.

Of course, the poor suckers that come behind them are screwed.

But pulling up the ladder is a primary feature of the Democrat Platform.

walter said...

They've had schooling in "social justice", nothing in economics.

Loren said...

"Teach a politician how to grill a Filet o' Fish for $4.25 an hour and you feed him for Life…" But Filet o' Fish aren't grilled. They are fried. In a different fryer than the french fires or the pies. So the fish taste doesn't cross the products.

When I worked at McDonald's I think the minimum wage was $1.85. I made more money shoveling horse crap in the summer. ($1 a stall)

jr565 said...

brando wrote;
I'm sure that's a feature, not a bug, to the populists. A lot of the support for higher minimum wages comes from unions (whose members make more than minimum wage) because their own wage scales are based on a multiple of the minimums, so if the minimum goes up so does the union wage.

Yup. And I wasnt' even thinking about the union aspect when mentioning it. Everyones salaries would need to go up. But certainly the unions.

jr565 said...

Gabriel wrote:
Luxury.

I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our mother would kill us, and dance about on our graves singing 'Hallelujah.'



"And you try and tell the young people of today that ..... they won't believe you."

MathMom said...

I babysat for 25¢ per hour (about 1966), finally started asking for 35¢, but was really jealous of my cousins who lived on farms and hoed and rogued beans, and set irrigation pipe, for $2 an hour. They worked all day all summer, and looked rich to me by the end of the summer. I got to stay a week or maybe two with them and earn the big bucks sometimes, but wasn't allowed to stay all summer.

I often think that if today's mall rats were employed setting irrigation pipe instead of amusing themselves walking the mall, America would be in better shape.

DKWalser said...

And you know this...how? Even if this were true at some time, now, as more well-paying jobs with benefits are sent overseas--where "well-paid" and "benefits" alike are less costly than here--minimum-wage jobs are becoming more and more the only jobs many people get get.

I know this because studies based on department of labor and census data have consistently shown that most workers do not stay in minimum wage jobs for much of their working career. Relatively soon after they have demonstrated an ability to show up on time and work hard, they find higher paying jobs with greater responsibilities. This is why these jobs are frequently called "entry-level" -- because they are the first rung on a ladder to higher wages.

Are there exceptions? Yes. Have things gotten worse in recent years? Yes. Low-wage jobs are far easier to move to lower cost areas (both inside and outside the US), which is why raising the costs of employing such workers (by mandating higher wages and benefits or increasing regulations on employers) does so much harm to workers who are just starting out. There are far fewer jobs available and their chances of finding that first job becomes much more difficult. Only those few who actually land a job are benefited by the types of policies you espouse.

rhhardin said...

That must be the most awful first sentence ever.

Fernandinande said...

Robert Cook said...
"What's too often lost in the debate over a 'living wage' is that most people hold minimum wage jobs only at the start of their working career."

And you know this...how?


Numbers and such.

"The notion that there are millions of full-time workers struggling to raise a family, but are stuck in jobs paying the minimum wage for long periods of time is more myth than fact.

Almost all full-time workers (99.4%) are earning more than the minimum wage, and almost all full-time hourly workers (98.3%) are earning more than the minimum wage. Most importantly, the fact that more than three out of four teenagers (77.2%), who are the least skilled and least educated group of workers, earned more than the minimum wage in 2011 would suggest the minimum wage is mostly an entry-level wage for beginning workers with no skills. The reality of the labor market is that even a large majority of previously unskilled teenage workers are earning more than the minimum wage as soon as they acquire minimal jobs skills and work habits, and can demonstrate their value to employers."

garage mahal said...

"The notion that there are millions of full-time workers struggling to raise a family, but are stuck in jobs paying the minimum wage for long periods of time is more myth than fact.

Thanks Obama!

I'm Full of Soup said...

Entry level, low paying jobs can teach you invaluable lifelong lessons. Like how to work hard to get a better job, how to work fast and efficiently, how to do things you would never have done before and learn things you would never have learned otherwise, how things are made, how to get better tips, who is a good customer and which customers may be crazy [easy to do on a national holiday when you are bartending in a corner bar].

Nonapod said...

Thanks Obama!

I know you're attempting to mock, but of course that fact that an overwhelming majority of employed people are making more than the minimum wage has little to do with anything Obama has done, rather that's just the way wages have always been.

However it could and has been reasonably argued that the fact that the actual Labor Force Participation Rate has shrunk can be attributed to Obama's policies (specifically the ACA).

I'm Full of Soup said...

Cookie - we are all "working people". So screw you and your class hatred and resentment. Save it for the uber-wealthy Dems or the uber-wealthy librul Independents you reliably vote for on election day.

traditionalguy said...

The Dollar Menu makes manly men out of fryboys.

Beldar said...

I never flipped burgers; I did a lot of unpaid work in my dad's furniture & appliance store from about first grade on.

But my first job for anyone other than my parents was selling popcorn at the rodeo, circa 1964. It was a dry county — there was no beer — but I also sold soda pop. My recollection is that I was paid $5 in cash, with no W-2 or 1099, for about six hours' work on each of three nights, and I was damned proud of that $15. My next job, which lasted a full week, came a couple of years later, when I conned a carny into letting me run the lights and smoke and sound effects in a trailer that housed a traveling carnival's "house of horrors." For that, I think I got $10/night. (The carny thought he'd conned me, but it's all a question of perspective.)

By high school in the early 1970s, I was a disc jockey at the local radio station, where I did indeed make minimum wage, paid taxes, and filed a tax return.

Each of my four kids had jobs as teenagers, some of which were traditional but some not -- babysitting and summer-camp counseloring, peddling coffee at Starbucks, writing code for a web obtimization company.

I'd never trust anyone who hadn't had a "menial" job at some point in his or her life.

johns said...

In addition to the point made by many here that most minimum wage workers move on to higher-paid jobs, it is also reported that the average family income of minimum wage workers was $53,000 in 2012 (Census Bureau, Current Population Survey) and 2/3 of min wage workers have family incomes more than 150% of the poverty level. So increases in the min wage are almost if not totally ineffective as an anti-poverty policy. But FAIRNESS!!

Fabi said...

All four of my grandparents grew up so poor that no one in contemporary America could even relate. And guess what? They worked their asses off to escape their condition without a handout, without a minimum wage, without some nitwit celebrity tweeting about how much kale you can buy with food stamps.

Fuck the poor. Seriously. But especially fuck the whiny poor-apologists such as Cookie. You're all losers, and I use your SJW tears to clean my monocle and flavor my martinis. Suck it.

I'm Full of Soup said...

My first summer job was for a carpenter making $1.40 per hour in the summer of 1968. Cash no taxes. The following summer I worked in a hot factory for $1.80 per hour and got my pay in cash in a little pay envelope with the tax deductions noted on the outside.

According to my social security statement, I made a total of $1,164 in 1969 from that job and the part-time job I had at Kiddie City in the shopping season before Xmas.

Rusty said...

Fernandinande said @ 2:26

Our Bob is a bit of a fabulist.

I'm Full of Soup said...

Fabi wins the thread!

garage mahal said...

One is a Senator and the other is your governor.

Two losers who can't cut it in the private sector. They've lived off the government almost their entire lives.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Garage - Please name for the class, a democrat who worked in the private sector.

Democrats are losers who can't cut it in the private sector. They've lived off the government almost their entire lives.

Unless you can name one.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Fabi does win. Perfect.

David said...

"Don't lie, Robert Cook. It doesn't help you."

Grossly unfair to Robert Cook.

He's merely ignorant.

Wince said...

Massachusetts is implementing a Mandatory Paid SIck Leave Law. Let me quote the required Small Business Impact Statement from the state Attorney General:

5. Analyze whether the proposed regulation is likely to deter or encourage the formation of new businesses in the Commonwealth.

Answer: The regulation is unlikely to deter or encourage the formation of new businesses in the Commonwealth.

I submit this Small Business Impact Statement on behalf of the Attorney General pursuant to the requirements of G.L. c. 30A, § 2.

Sincerely,
Mike Firestone, Assistant Attorney General


And can you believe that clown is paid more than the minimum wage?

Alex said...

garage... McDonalds is as far as Ryan and Walker made it in the real world.

Mental illness is never a laughing matter.

Sad.

Conserve Liberty said...

Comments on this thread should be limited to those who ahve worked a minimum wage job.

Alex said...

The ever worse part is that if garage said that in a room full of liberals, they'd all nod along in agreement.

Like Michael Savage once said..

Liberalism is a mental disorder.

damikesc said...

Two losers who can't cut it in the private sector. They've lived off the government almost their entire lives.

Ditto basically everybody you voted for in the last 20 years

FullMoon said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Larry J said...

garage mahal said...
McDonalds is as far as Ryan and Walker made it in the real world.


That's more real world job experience than Obama ever had. Probably Hillary, Warren, and a bunch of others, too.

I define "real world job experience" as not being employed by government and actually doing something of value.

Fabi said...

I'd be shocked if anyone on this thread had not worked at a minimum wage job, Conserve Liberty. I've worked at a few. The most important lesson I learned: I sure as fuck was not going to be stuck at one of those for very long. And I wasn't.

Skeptical Voter said...

Glenn Reynolds over at Instapundit had the best response to that first sentence. "Well for a start, both had real jobs. That's a good signal."

Having a job as a teenager is a growth process. These days those entry level jobs are few and far between, and a generation of helicopter parents don't want their little darlings exposed to the vicissitudes of life.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

My first job was $2.10/hr.

Here in CO, the Colorado legislature will vote to give themselves a huge raise. A big juicy tax payer funded raise.

Must be nice to vote yourself a raise. The rest of us are the losers.

Etienne said...

FullMoon said Mad Dog 20/20

"As majestic as the cascading waters of a drain pipe."

Alex said...

I guess garage only worships trust-fund liberals.

garage mahal said...

Unless you can name one.

Jim Doyle - Governor
Russ Feingold - Senator

Both have had successful careers in the private sector. Walker and Ryan talk a good game about the evils of living off the government. But that is precisely what they have chosen to do.

FullMoon said...

Coupe said...

FullMoon said Mad Dog 20/20

"As majestic as the cascading waters of a drain pipe.


Brown paper bag wrapping bottle enhances effect

Fabi said...

Here's one of my minimum wage stories, since we're all supposed to grope at the nobility of being poor: Before finishing my undergraduate degree, I decided to reevaluate my life and took a job on a beer truck. Minimum wage. Hard work. No lunch breaks. Some days went twelve hours.

After being there for only four months, a funny thing happened. The manager approached me about being a driver. Drivers worked on commission and made - 35 years ago - about sixty grand. Sixty grand was unthinkable money!

You know why I got the offer? Because work started at 5:30. I was there every day at 5:15. Every day my uniform was clean and I had ironed it. Every day I said please and thank you and yes sir and no sir to everyone.

I didn't go around trying to organize a union for higher pay or whine about no lunch breaks or anything else. I decided that no matter what I did in life - beer hauler or CEO - I'd be the best damned one on the planet. Poverty is a choice. A really bad one.

garage mahal said...

Government handouts and the ability to organize is for the rich ONLY. They work hard, they deserve it!

Anonymous said...

My first minimum wage job was pizza. My second was the movies. Working at the movie theater was a fantastic job. I made $4.25 an hour and got free soda and free movies.

Didn't make much money but it was a great job.

Curious George said...

"garage mahal said...

Jim Doyle - Governor
Russ Feingold - Senator

Both have had successful careers in the private sector. Walker and Ryan talk a good game about the evils of living off the government. But that is precisely what they have chosen to do."

Doyle private sector success was cashing in on a life in government. Nothing before. He's a lobbysit.

Feingold has a short stint as a lawyer, and has never gone back to law.

Both Walker and Ryam has jobs before public office.

So as usual you are full of shit.

walter said...

It's also the case that the minimum standards for behavior and competence at McD's are much lower than when these guys were working there. Seeing that..it's a little difficult to get worked up over the "social justice".

jr565 said...

Also in regards to minimum wage in Seattle, lets not forget the small businesses that are going to be hurt by raising the minimum wage to 15 an hour.

http://www.illinoismirror.com/san-francisco-15-minimum-wage-hike-forces-comic-book-shop-to-come-up-with-extra-80000-a-year/

One of the funniest lines in the whole article is "“I’m hearing from a lot of customers, ‘I voted for that, and I didn’t realize it would affect you.’”
How did you not realize it? How is it possible?

jr565 said...

I never did work a minimum wage job. When I was doing the grind I landed a job that paid slightly more than the minimum wage. Rather than going the Mcdonalds route I went the coffee bar route (not starbucks but one of its competitors). It was still shit money but I consoled myself that at least I wasnt' working at Mcdonalds.

jr565 said...

Prior to that or subsequent to that I also worked for the Census Bureau. THat paid pretty decent, but the work was atrocious (got chased down the stairs by some whackos when I knocked on their doors)and temporary anyway.

walter said...

Pre-"barista" era..some might find hard to imagine.

Fernandinande said...

... Obama described his time at Business International this way: "Like a spy behind enemy lines, I arrived every day at my mid-Manhattan office. ..." Obama wrote that he took the job only after his applications to several civil rights organizations were ignored.

Fernandinande said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
djf said...

Aren't all McDonald's Restaurants forgettable?

CStanley said...

Meanwhile "the modern, progressive" McDonalds, which recently announced that employees of their corporate owned stores will be making at least $1 over the local min wage, is quietly planning to sell off most of their corporate stores (the franchise stores are not obligated to pay more.)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2015/05/04/mcdonalds-just-unveiled-its-massive-new-plan-to-get-you-eating-there-again/l

Has there ever been a promise announced in the guise of progressivism that wasn't like Lucy setting up Charlie Brown with the football?

DanTheMan said...

>> Walker and Ryan talk a good game about the evils of living off the government. But that is precisely what they have chosen to do.

As I recall, a lot of other people (let's call them "voters")had to choose that, too.

Michael K said...

" If you keep seeing the same face in the drive up window for ten years that's the manager. Everyone else either advances out or goes into sheltered workshops."

Cook demonstrates the typical left wing ignorance. Before I started my diet (20 pounds and counting), I used to stop at sandwich place (Subway) and noticed, after a while, that the two people who are there at slow times are the owner and his wife. The kids work rush hours.

I wonder how many minimum wage jobs Cookie has ever worked? I can count about 10 but then that was before there was a minimum wage.

Meade said...

My first job was Garden Helper/Sharecropper. I sold, door to door, ripe fresh homegrown vegetables from my wagon that I pulled through our neighborhood. Tomatoes, bell peppers, cucumbers, summer squash, sweet corn, and bunches of flowers. Vegetables were 10 cents each or 3 for a quarter. Flowers were 25 cents a bunch. Total receipts were split 50/50 with my mother who also paid me a quarter for each time I wheel-hoed the garden. I was 7 yrs.-old, free range, and have never found a better job in the 55 years since. I'd make a terrible politician because I don't like people or traveling — I only like trees and dogs.

Michael K said...

"Their rule is if the kids don't play a sport in high school they have to work. So when the boy quit his sport last summer he had to go find a job."

Calvin Coolidge's son had a job:"Calvin, Jr. was working in a Massachusetts tobacco field. Another young worker remarked to him, “If my father was President, I would not work in a tobacco field.” Calvin, Jr. replied, “If my father were your father, you would.”

I see few kids with a work history because all the low wage jobs are filled by illegals.

Epsilon Given said...

"""minimum-wage jobs are becoming more and more the only jobs many people get get."""

If this is true, then it's a serious problem. I don't know if Government can provide the solution to the problem (although we shouldn't be quick to rule out the possibility that Government, through unintended consequences of some sort of obscure rule change, is the problem), but we need to examine carefully the assumptions that this statement implies.

Namely, that the best solution to the problem of adults getting stuck in minimum wage jobs IS NOT to figure out how to get these adults out of those positions, nor figure out why better jobs aren't available; instead, we're supposed to increase the minimum wage, so that these adults can be CEMENTED into this position in a little more comfort.

Yay for progress of sorts! I guess...

chickelit said...

I just overheard Hillary on C-Span saying that we need to open the floodgates even wider along the southern border.

Where is the Dem opposition to this?

Michael K said...

garage's "private sector" Democrats' work experience.

"Doyle, who graduated from Madison West High School in 1963, attended Stanford University for three years, then returned home to Madison to finish his senior year at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. After graduating from college and inspired by John F. Kennedy's call to public service, Doyle worked as a teacher with his wife, Jessica Doyle in Tunisia, Africa as part of the Peace Corps from 1967 to 1969.

"Feingold worked as an attorney at the private law firms of Foley & Lardner and La Follette & Sinykin from 1979 until 1985."

Yup, that sure is great work experience, starting at the bottom. Typical left wingers with rich parents.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Chickl - There's big money in it for her.

richard mcenroe said...

"McDonalds is as far as Ryan and Walker made it in the real world."

Be patient, Garage, if you apply yourself you can still catch up to them.

They may not let you work drive-thru though...

walter said...

"Undocumented" lives matter!

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Ben Carson – Neurosurgeon

Carly Fiorina – CEO, HP

Rand Paul – Ophthalmologist

Hillary Clinton – wife of Bill, fired from Watergate investigation for "Lying, Unethical Behavior"

Guildofcannonballs said...

This is a link to the Dirty Burger.

Fritz said...

I have an idea. Let's let in a few million peons from below the southern border, who will work for well below minimum wage happily, and not demand the same benefits regular citizens will.

We might want to replace most of our IT workers with South Asians who speak English, and take lower pay too.

But make sure they can vote for us in 4 years.

Guildofcannonballs said...

"Fabi wins the thread!"

Yes and Bill Gates says fuck you you piece of shit.

How stupid are you to live so lowly compared to Marty Augustine or Bill Gates?

What mutations occurred and why to make you so poor compared to your rich Coastal elites like Titus wants us to think he is?

Titus said...

They have only worked in government their entire life.

So they didn't actually "make something"....but thats ok because they are pubes.

tits.

Titus said...

I started working at 12 deliverying newspapers. I detasseled corn-that was shit work. I worked at JCPenney's "men's department, worked in the Memorial Union HR Department, and worked at a trucker hotel in Deforest.

I also designed and continue to design many color guard shows at $5k a pop.

Now I am elite though, working in corporate America, making well into six figures. My hubby is filthy rich because his grandpa worked in the Nehru government and was there when India became a country. He was also invested in trains. My hubby makes over 400k in the technology sector. designing and testing mobile apps. But his real money is from his family.

tits.

Guildofcannonballs said...

Lawyers and wealthy and healthy middle-class persons I engage with daily about 8 months of the year *run the gamut* from lucky shoulda-been-by-God-losers-like-Hefner-to-WFB to great people life fucked.

Blessed with intelligence, some folks think if they are at 94% proficiency IQ-wise (in some believable metric for this argument's sake) they have all the indignation to unrighteously declaim "fuck the poor" as though they and theirs will always be exempt from the fuckings.

And they are right about the first part, but the second is where God must play a part that turns centrally into the opposite of stardom and its uncleanly stardust.

Titus said...

My hubby is younger, sexier, and has a better body than me, yet pays for everything.

Probably similar to Ryan' wife, who is a filthy rich democrat.

Gabriel said...

@Epsilon Given:f this is true, then it's a serious problem.

It isn't true, see my link at 12:21.

"The percentage of hourly paid workers earning the federal minimum wage or less declined from 4.7 percent in 2012 to 4.3 percent in 2013. This remains well below the figure of 13.4 percent in 1979, when data were first collected on a regular basis."

Guildofcannonballs said...

Solving poverty is simple:

Make people in poverty believe they can rise above. Obama did this, but didn't solve poverty, because he didn't and doesn't give a fuck about solving the problem, which naturally must amplify the amount of effort needed to return to a state whereby success is able to be pre-determined with enough follow through.

Many, in America at least until 2009, will then.

Others won't; wanting worldly solutions idiotically thinking they are destinyaly disadvantaged in the most advantaged society in history.

Fabi said...

@Notquiteunbuckley: Hahaha. I ain't never been nothin' but a winner. Zero everybody out today and in five years, I'll be a winner again and the poor will still be poor. You just don't fucking get it, do you?

Fabi said...

I think I misread your comment, Notquiteunbuckley. My apologies.

Laslo Spatula said...

This is how you determine appropriate wages.


I am Laslo.

Michael said...

I made my kids get their own shit jobs. I started in warehouses at 15 and graduated to packing popsicles from two in the morning til ten thirty. The last was in my college years. In all jobs I worked with people who were not doing it part time, who were not equipped or motivated to move beyond. In every one my colleagues suggested that I slow it down. I learned then that there is an enormous amount of bird dogging and laying about. More than can be imagined.

Big Mike said...

So which McDonalds did Rience Priebus work at?

Gahrie said...

I worked in the fields growing up, picking fruits and vegetables as day labor. My parents thought it was good for me.

The irony is that I teach at a 85% Hispanic suburban high school, and i'm the only person in my classroom who has ever worked in the fields.

el polacko said...

walker and ryan worked at mcdonald's ? well hillary ate at chipotle once...so they're even !

Smilin' Jack said...

“There’s a sense of responsibility and humility that you get from a job where you earned only $4.25 an hour,”

I suspect it was more a sense of "Fuck this shit! I'm going to become a politician and never work another day in my life!"

Etienne said...

Bottom line for me, is I still vote.

I am an independent voter, and thus I have no say in the Party primaries. I don't get to vote in those (closed primary state).

For me, I get to ignore everything until the end-game. I only have to evaluate two resumes, and select the best candidate.

This evaluation is quite simple. What is their education, what is their motivation (as I see it), and how good a job do I think they will do.

If both candidates piss me off, I always vote for the ugly one. I guess I just feel sorry for the bastards.

You have to know that Ted Cruz had to compete with a Cabbage-Patch doll for breast milk. He is odds-on favorite for the ugly one.

I just wish these candidates luck, but I only get to see them in the General election, and that's a year down the road.

I could be dead by then...

Rusty said...

FullMoon said...
Blooger Coupe....
Model A, Desoto, Mad Dog 20/20.?
I loke your style!

First paycheck from McDonals taught me about payroll taxes. WHERE IS THE REST OF MY FUCKIN' MONEY?

My first job was hoeing weeds in my grandfathers two acres of evergreens for .25 a row. I was 9 or ten. It's where I first learned how fucking big an acre was.

tim in vermont said...

Don't lie, Robert Cook. It doesn't help you.

He's not lying, he is stone cold ignorant. But he does have the kind of certainty that is amusing and considering that fact.

Fernandinande said...

tim in vermont said...
'Don't lie, Robert Cook. It doesn't help you.'

He's not lying, he is stone cold ignorant. But he does have the kind of certainty that is amusing and considering that fact


I think he's lying. As soon as people posted info showing that his assertions about minimum wage were incorrect, he disappeared. It could be he suddenly lost interest in the post/thread, but probably not. And besides, socialists lie all the time.

furious_a said...

Garage eats at Mcdonalds. Alot.

furious_a said...

And you know this...how?

Poor, blinkered Cookie. If you'd ever worked a min. wage job you'd know that the life lesson learned from a min. wage job is that one doesn't want to work in a min. wage job the rest of one's life.

furious_a said...

McDonalds is as far as Ryan and Walker made it in the real world.

Ankle-biting Paul Ryan and Scott Walker anonymously on the internet is as far as Garage has made it in the world.

Meade said...

The brilliance of Titus's white male privilege blinds me.

TosaGuy said...

The Progs who now run the behind-the-scenes of Wauwatosa's (current home of Gov. Walker) business and government want to get rid of the city's McDonalds because it doesn't fit their vision of the street where it is located.

It is the most diverse business in the city with regard to both employees and clientele. The new trendy restaurants new to the city are as white in customers and front-of-the-house help as the background on this blog.

I hate what is becoming of my former city. It is becoming without character and purpose.

mccullough said...

I caddied as a teenager. Hours are flexible and its a cash job. I'm going to caddy again when I retire.

Epsilon Given said...

@Epsilon Given:f this is true, then it's a serious problem.

It isn't true, see my link at 12:21.



I think I need to make my point a little more clear. If the claim that people are stuck in minimum-wage jobs were true, then it's really sad that the proposed solution is to make sure that the adults stuck in that situation are given a "living wage" so that they will be permanently stuck in that position. If this were true, wouldn't a better solution be to figure out how to get such adults better jobs?

In other words, those who support minimum wage increases for this reason, are actively seeking to make sure that such adults are permanently stuck in such a position.

I do not see how it can be claimed that such a solution is humane or valuable!