My family of MAGAts keep insisting that unskilled labor shouldn't be paid a living wage.
And fail to see the flaws in that logic.
this post was submitted on 18 May 2026
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No one should have to work multiple jobs to "just get by." In fact, your survival shouldn't be tied to wage slavery.
Enabling mass-migration into rich countries just means brown people will become the new underclass, enabling just more racism.
Enabling mass-migration into rich countries just means brown people will become the new underclass
Only true for societies with job shortages, which hasn't been the case for most of history and is quite unique to capitalism. In a socialist society with full employment, mass migration would be more than welcome, as socialists understand that labor is the source of value and the means to betterment of society.
I'm team automation, BTW. No need to create a new underclass of brown people.
Wife of a friend argues that "burger flippers" shouldn't earn enough money. She agrees there's a market for burgers and that the jobs need to be filled, but the people shouldn't be compensated for their time. You can't change her mind.
Yeah that's the talk show propaganda line. Designed to make the idiots feel good that they're better than the burger flippers.
We look at it and go, well who makes the money then the corporations? the CEO's? They say well they earned it, and we write them off as a lost cause.
And ofc she wants to make it big. Get a huge valuation on a company with just a potential customer base (Google, M$ etc will all be paying her!) in six months and then sell. She asked me to invest. I declined.
Oh, do they also hit you with the "it's not meant to be a permanent full-time job, just for kids breaking into the work force for some pocket money" type shit? As if the supply of teenagers wanting to be exploited for pennies is infinite, while the lead is a 47-year-old who's been there for 12 years and gotten $5 in raises?
Oh absolutely.
I've yet to see a high school that has classes between 10pm and 6am, though.
"It's what the market will bare"
Burger Flippers Unionize, drive up wages
"They're making my burgers too expensive!!!"
There's isn't even an actual relationship between paying people more money and the price of the product to an individual. Not like that at least, and especially not with high volume fast food.
Big Macs in the Netherlands are in the same ballpark as in the US, price wise, despite higher wages for "buger flippers" and better overall benefits, job security and working conditions.
Big Macs in the Netherlands are in the same ballpark as in the US, price wise
Are they the same size though? Isn't everything in America ~~fatter~~ bigger?
The relationship is just one they create artificially because American business has devolved into essentially finding any excuse you can to jack up the price
There’s isn’t even an actual relationship between paying people more money and the price of the product to an individual.
That's broadly true. But end customers can't see the business balance sheets. So when wages go up at the same time as inflation, they do the Milton Friedman Econ 101 thing and blame wage earners for price spikes regardless of the reality.
Big Macs in the Netherlands are in the same ballpark as in the US, price wise, despite higher wages for “buger flippers” and better overall benefits, job security and working conditions.
I remember that staistic from decades ago. I wonder if it still holds true. The Dutch have been undergoing their own neoliberal fleecing of late. Rents are skyrocketing. Deregulation and union busting has taken their toll.
Everyone should just work hard and become middle-managers instead of complaining about low wages.
- a conservative who used to argue with me online
At the same time they were probably arguing to pay the entry level less and by proxy setting themselves up to povery even as middle mangers.
Well the water is rising fast, but there's still ladder above me, go ahead and open the valve some more!
So he cleans the trash then?
I doubt he showers.
I agree with the argument but there is one undue assumption : Maybe they don't agree the job is necessary.
Ohh it's not necessary, it can be automated. Then a tablet can take the order/payment. then you don't need managers.
Cleaning, Maintenance, and Unemployment. That's what our grandchildren will be left with. And maybe not cleaning if the design is done well enough.
Maybe they don’t agree the job is necessary.
If you're patroning the business, you are implicitly conceding the necessity.
I'll spot you there's a plethora of Bullshit Jobs, but they are far more likely to be bureaucratic policing or saturation marketing than retail food service.
They don't tell rich people who do unnecessary jobs to go do something productive instead.
No they're producing money that's like pure value and stuff doing. You need to download more ram my guy.
Then why are they at McDonald's?
Because they never stopped being children and things that aren't awful scare and horrify them. Their brains are fundamentally broken at a deep level and they need probably years of intensive managed psychological help to want anything other than what amounts in aggregate to death in every way that matters while being desperately afraid to die. McDonalds is like a branded fun nostalgic thing that invokes the dying without being scary
McDonald's branding isn't even fun anymore
I more meant along the line that if they don't deem the job important enough, why are they still relying on the worker?
The what? I don't understand and neither do they.
I agree with the argument but there is one undue assumption : Maybe they don't agree the job is necessary.
I was just using McDonald's workers as an example, as I've heard that referenced multiple times in the past as "why don't they just get a better job", referring to the idea that their job doesn't deserve a living wage.
So if "they" don't deem the job as necessary, why are they still relying on it?
No. its the money that makes the fried potatoes. What do workers have to do with it? Clearly you've never made anything in your life.
Because they are lazy and tell themselves that it's smarter to eat fast food than to cook
I knew someone who rationalised ordering food to be delivered for every meal as more economical than cooking
He became the Chief Financial Officer for KFC in my country
He's fat, and his relationship fell apart
I work with people like this. The next sentence is always some variant of “if they don’t want to be poor they should get a better job. “
Yeah dumbass, there’s 100 million 6-figure jobs available for everyone to not be poor. And education that doesn’t put you 6 figures in debt. They should work harder than the 2 jobs they’re already working and Ubering on the side, you say? They’re already doing 4x as much as your privileged fat ass sitting behind a desk who knocks off early on a Friday.
Fuck I hate people sometimes.
You have a great point.
100 million 6-figure jobs available for everyone to not be poor
While "100 million" was likely made up, there are 8.3 billion people on earth. Those 100 million jobs are enough for 1/83 of the population.
The secret ingredient is crime
Unironicaly, I believe people do this to get ahead, and that is the only way people make it out.
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