The US taxpayers are subsidizing the McDonalds workforce to the tune of $1.2 Billion. In fact McDonalds actively helps it’s employees sign up for welfare.
Two studies released today make some different calculations to determine the total cost to American taxpayers of a large, low-wage workforce. It comes to an average of $7 billion a year. That’s the amount of annual public assistance families of fast-food workers received between 2007 and 2011, according to a new report written by economist Sylvia Allegretto and others, sponsored by the University of California at Berkeley’s Labor Center and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and funded by Fast Food Forward, the group that helped organize the summer’s labor strikes. The authors used publicly available data.
The report calls out the fast-food industry for its low wages, citing a median salary of $8.69 an hour and a history of offering part-time work. That might have been fine when those behind the counter were mostly teenagers living at home. These days, though, 68 percent of fast-food workers are single or married adults who aren’t in school—and 26 percent are raising children.
A recent study showed that 52% of non-management fast food workers in the U.S. are receiving some sort of federal benefits to supplement their wages, and that McDonald’s employees alone account for an estimated $1.2 billion (with a “b”) in annual payouts. And when employees call the McDonald’s hotline for workers looking to improve their financial position, operators direct them to various welfare programs.
So... Is this praise for McDonalds? They are effectively reducing the amount of public assistance the very same people would be taking if they weren't employed part time....
So... Is this praise for McDonalds? They are effectively reducing the amount of public assistance the very same people would be taking if they weren't employed part time....
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