I'm in the USA. Worked for McDonalds starting as a junior in high school and through college. It was a great job for a young kid, I learned a lot about business and restaurant operations. Pay wasn't super, but it was spending money. Never intended to be the sort of job to support a family.
Where does this idea of “Never intended to be the sort of job to support a family.” come from? Half or more of the people I see working at any given fast food chain are adults, which makes sense considering they need some mature people around and people to work during the day when kids are at school. What about those people?
Managers can make good money, I think OP was referring to the entry level positions.
And I would agree, they aren’t intended to provide a wage to support a family. That doesn’t stop people who are doing just that to work those jobs.
And there are also plenty of adults who don’t need to work who do those jobs. I know a few older guys who work part time at Home Depot making peanuts but they don’t need to the money, they need some routine and interactions.
> they aren’t intended to provide a wage to support a family
What are these jobs good for then? How is society benefiting from having people doing this for so little, as opposed to them getting a proper job (that is supposed to support a family)?
The people quitting their jobs to find a living wage and consistent reasonable working hours at McDonald’s aren't 16 though. They’re the people who these jobs aren’t “intended” for. Now that they’re gone where are all the 16 year olds that these jobs are “intended” for?
They’ll either find people at that wage or they won’t.
I’m not sure I understand the handwringing. If some guy opens a used computer shop and asks $1,000 for an old 486 chip I don’t worry about “who is going to buy it?”.
I recall one profiled in the Seattle Times a few years ago. He was working as a Walmart greeter into his 90s. He said he didn't need the money, but the job got him up, out of the house, and socializing with people.
If the greeter didn’t show up for work one day I feel comfortable saying it wouldn’t matter at all, it’s not the same as when the cooks at McDonald’s don’t show. It is nice to have them welcome you though.
That is not the kind of jobs we’re talking about though. People who don’t need to work are not who’s being discussed.
Since we’re using anecdotes instead of data I’ll add some. More than one retiree in my family left the workforce because of Covid because they were afraid of contracting it. I don’t know if they’ll go back to work, but they’re not in the labor pool regardless.
No, I don’t have numbers, I just know several people. Not wealthy by any means. People on pensions, etc.
And sure, some people works those jobs since they can’t find anything else. Not sure what you’re getting at. Would you prefer those jobs just didn’t exist?
Some simple jobs exist so mentally challenged people can find pride and purpose in their lives because they are doing useful work, rather than sitting around being pitied.
Do the mentally challenged universally care about pride in their work and purpose? Isn’t a pointless job still pitiful?
Some people are excluded from being paid the minimum wage and in some cases are exploited. That’s likely not in many or most cases, but my point is that I doubt the jobs were created with the mentally challenged in mind.
Anecdata: I'm a number that supports that, I couldn't live with myself if I wasn't able to do meaningful work. You sound like a cohort of friends I have who run around with "eat the rich" feel-good campaigns and can't be bothered to have dinner with their families; that was presumptuous but I feel like the world would be much happier with more people finding meaningful work (understanding of course that "meaningful" is different for everyone and it's rare that you find a perfect fit at your first/second job) and fewer people asking for the world to change in ways that stroke their ego. Life is an adventure, and an adventure where you never get hurt or face challenges isn't much of a life now is it?
