Apparently that's what fast food workers are asking with protests in New York.

Workers at McDonald's, Burger King and Wendy's restaurants across New York walked out Monday in a one-day strike to demand better pay and the right to unionize, calling for minimum wage to more than double from $7.25 to $15 an hour and the end to what activists called "abusive labor practices."

"It's noisy, it's really hot, fast, they rush you. Sometimes you don't even get breaks. All for $7.25? It's crazy," said Nathalia Sepulveda, who works at a McDonald's opposite Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, where one protest took place.

Ashley Pinkney, who works at McDonald's in Times Square, arrived at the downtown rally still in her uniform.

"I can't even order something off the menu with what I earn," she said. "It makes me wonder what I'm even doing there."

Similar protests are being held in Milwaukee, Detroit, Flint, Kansas City, St Louis and Chicago. (video link)

If you want to make more than 7.25 an hour then stop working at fast food, get a better education, dress for success, and apply yourself 100% to what your goal is. I'm sorry but I've never met someone at a fast food restaurant that I would pay more than 7.25 an hour unless it was management. Just to prove my point, go into any place like that, buy something, say its 7.32 give them a 10, wait for them to ring it up and then hand them an additional .32. It will totally screw up their day. I'm not trying to make that sound like I'm being ugly, but if you want 15 an hour you damn well better show that your worth 15 an hour.

I think that the majority of them don't try. I never said they were easy, but I do beleive its possible. I could go into more detail but I don't much feel like arguing over an internet forum. Also expecting 15 an hour working fast food just proves to me why you make 7.25 an hour. 9 maybe 10 bucks an hour, I can see that but 15 an hour is laughable.

If you think these are easy when you're below the poverty level, you are dreaming.

 

I will go a little further. My dad grew up in a family of 11 kids. They ate whatever they grew/slaughtered themselves. He has no college education but he applied himself 100% to everything he did. He was making 4.25 an hour when him and my mom got pregnant. Now he is making 37.** an hour.

You all can say whatever you want but the majority of society today expects everything to be handed to them and if you don't believe me explain why our country is being led by a bunch of liberals? Explain to me how its fair to overtax the rich just so you can afford to give government aid to the poor? The rich didn't get rich from working at mcdonalds all their life. Hell alot of the rich people probably didn't even make that much with the job they had. They just had a good head on their shoulders, didn't piss away their money, and didn't expect hand outs from the government...

You get out what you put in...

Could not agree more.

I've worked fast food joints before the minimum wage was raised to $7.25, they need to stop bitching and whining. Plus, if they can't "buy" the food with that (seriously a dollar a burger), then they are living WAY above their means and might need to downsize on the house, the new car that they got with a loan and pay $300-$600 a month on, and the new phone that probably costs them $200-$400 a month. I've seen these peeps, and their attitudes suck. Middle school and high school kids are being taught that they are entitled to more than they deserve, that they are owed something, that just their presence (showing up) is worth top dollar. Fast food joints are a starter job, not a career........ keep looking and show some ambition instead of bitching and whining, it's a fast food joint for pete's sake!

The point though is if McDonalds paid 15 an hour, what happens with the rest of the jobs? Does my payrate double? or does it just stay the same? I don't make a lot of money by any means but I'm smart with it and I don't live above my means.

 

Indeed. To illustrate this I highly recommend the book Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich.. it's something like 20 years old at this point but the relevance is still there. Maybe even more so now since there's an even bigger disparity between a living wage and minimum wage now.

 

$15/hour really doesn't sound unreasonable to me. If one were to work 40 hour weeks all year, that only amounts to about $1000 more than my yearly salary as a graduate student, which is difficult to live on in this area of the country without some serious planning/frugal habits.

You all can say whatever you want but the majority of society today expects everything to be handed to them and if you don't believe me explain why our country is being led by a bunch of liberals?

This is completely silly.   First, political leaders have usually worked hard to get where they are - by definition, a position not "handed to them".   Unless the liberal pathway to being a leader somehow is different?   Second, you're either insinuating that only lazy people vote liberal, or that all liberals are lazy, both of which are just ridiculous.

This thread has no hope to go anywhere productive.   Pass me a KFC wing, will ya, LRB?

Make the wage high enough, and I'll toss my college degree and flip burgers.