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I'm not sure that it changed that much everywhere. Day shift employees, supervisors and managers have always been over 20 and many had children. Like the article states, the typical fast food worker brings in one third of the family income, not 100%.
Then we need to take a look at the cost of rent because unless you think fast food workers should sleep on the sidewalk there are very few rentals that they can afford on less than $20 an hour, especially when most of them only get 25 hours a week. In 2015 there were 1 bdrm apartments near where I live that rented for $600, now they rent for $1200-$1500.
That's the beauty of relatively free markets. The reason those apartments have gone up in price is because of lines of would-be tenants lined up outside rental offices filling out applications at higher rental rates. If, instead, no one is filling out tenant applications and tenants don't renew leases (or break them) and there are plenty of available apartments, landlords respond to those price signals by lowering rents. Where did all those would-be tenants willing to fork over $1200-$1500 come from? It all starts with a $5 Trillion federal helicopter drop.
Economic life is salmon swimming upstream, and the low-quality employees are in a competition with others.
And one would expect developers to build more rental units in response. Rent is high because elected municipal leaders want to constrain supply. Increase the supply of rental housing by 10% and watch rent prices plummet like Wile Coyote with an anvil wrapped to his ankle in a Road Runner cartoon.
A classic thing municipal governments put in place: a height restriction that is 1 foot too restrictive such that a builder cannot build a two-story apartment building, and without a 2nd story the project is not economically viable. Why do city planners do this? To force the builder to come to the City, Bend-The-Knee, and plead for a code variance to build a rental building 1 foot taller than allowed by code so they can make it a two-story apartment building, adding to the housing stock (and make the project economically viable).
The City is very willing to provide this 1-foot code variance - but only if the builder will "voluntarily" agree to perform some expensive Good Deed - such as build a park or add a bike lane, frequently over on the other side of town. Academic studies have shown this adds hundreds of thousands of dollars to the manufacturing cost of a single family home (in LA, over a quarter-million-dollars artificially added to the development cost of a single house)
Building departments and city planners do this on purpose and even are taught to do this in urban planning courses in college to enact social engineering - it is one of the ways they twist the arm of developers to fund things for which the public has not supplied tax revenue.
This adds $$$ to the building costs to build more rental units, both restricting supply and raising the break-even rental price point.
So direct your social ire where it belongs: not on employers, not on McDonalds, not on capitalism, but on municipal governments and their policies.
If local governments wished to do so, with the stroke of a pen, they could reduce the costs of adding housing supply dramatically. That they do not do so indicates that governments and the citizens to whom the listen do not wish to reduce the costs of building new homes.
For example, Utah-based developer Dell Loy Hansen has been working with a non-profit to build new housing in Kiev, Ukraine. They recently announced they had completed 82 houses in four and a half months. With bombs falling on them and a difficult labor market because anybody able bodied is in the war.
Eighty-two houses in 22 weeks. <== Let that sink in.
Someone I know spent two years and $15,000 in flood plain engineering just to get the permit to build a garage.
Fifteen-thousand dollars & two years - just to get a permit to build a garage.. <== Let that sink in.
Think of that stark contrast: in Kiev, in a war zone with missiles flying, a US developer was able to completely build 82 houses from scratch in 22 weeks.
I suspect the approval process in Kiev didn’t get bogged down in traffic counts, dark sky movements, the location of pickleball courts, NIMBYs, green tree-huggers who want everyone to live like Little House On The Prairie and for whom all development is considered evil, and city planners who demand that developers bend-the-knee.
Yes, there is a role for governmental regulation in real estate development, but the US' system is broken beyond belief.
I never suggested that, not once - and I think you know it. I would never expect an hourly worker to even try to negotiate a wage, but they have the right to turn down the job if the salary won't work for them.
I've found hunger is a powerful motivator. One problem is the employee in your hypothetical seems not to be hungry. They seem access to food without the need to work to put food on the table.
I've found hunger is a powerful motivator. One problem is the employee in your hypothetical seems not to be hungry. They seem access to food without the need to work to put food on the table.
So being hungry is gonna help the people working two jobs to survive? All that is gonna do is cause more people be hospitalized or take more government assistance. This is not surprising since you think these people are lazy I guess the people working two or three jobs do not exist for you. No offense but I do not think you know anything about the people you seem to dislike.
Remember when you grouse about a CEO's remuneration, you're playing the envy game.
If the stockholders could earn more profit by replacing the CEO with the same number of low paid employees, they'd do it in a NY minute.
The question no one wants to be asked : WHY?
Why is a high paid CEO able to make more profit for a corporation?
Is it his connections with the "old boy network" ? His knowledge of skeletons in closets ? His understanding of the labyrinthine tax code ? The insiders who need to be bribed ?
That's the beauty of relatively free markets. The reason those apartments have gone up in price is because of lines of would-be tenants lined up outside rental offices filling out applications at higher rental rates. If, instead, no one is filling out tenant applications and tenants don't renew leases (or break them) and there are plenty of available apartments, landlords respond to those price signals by lowering rents. Where did all those would-be tenants willing to fork over $1200-$1500 come from? It all starts with a $5 Trillion federal helicopter drop.
Economic life is salmon swimming upstream, and the low-quality employees are in a competition with others.
And one would expect developers to build more rental units in response. Rent is high because elected municipal leaders want to constrain supply. Increase the supply of rental housing by 10% and watch rent prices plummet like Wile Coyote with an anvil wrapped to his ankle in a Road Runner cartoon.
A classic thing municipal governments put in place: a height restriction that is 1 foot too restrictive such that a builder cannot build a two-story apartment building, and without a 2nd story the project is not economically viable. Why do city planners do this? To force the builder to come to the City, Bend-The-Knee, and plead for a code variance to build a rental building 1 foot taller than allowed by code so they can make it a two-story apartment building, adding to the housing stock (and make the project economically viable).
The City is very willing to provide this 1-foot code variance - but only if the builder will "voluntarily" agree to perform some expensive Good Deed - such as build a park or add a bike lane, frequently over on the other side of town. Academic studies have shown this adds hundreds of thousands of dollars to the manufacturing cost of a single family home (in LA, over a quarter-million-dollars artificially added to the development cost of a single house)
Building departments and city planners do this on purpose and even are taught to do this in urban planning courses in college to enact social engineering - it is one of the ways they twist the arm of developers to fund things for which the public has not supplied tax revenue.
This adds $$$ to the building costs to build more rental units, both restricting supply and raising the break-even rental price point.
So direct your social ire where it belongs: not on employers, not on McDonalds, not on capitalism, but on municipal governments and their policies.
If local governments wished to do so, with the stroke of a pen, they could reduce the costs of adding housing supply dramatically. That they do not do so indicates that governments and the citizens to whom the listen do not wish to reduce the costs of building new homes.
For example, Utah-based developer Dell Loy Hansen has been working with a non-profit to build new housing in Kiev, Ukraine. They recently announced they had completed 82 houses in four and a half months. With bombs falling on them and a difficult labor market because anybody able bodied is in the war.
Eighty-two houses in 22 weeks. <== Let that sink in.
Someone I know spent two years and $15,000 in flood plain engineering just to get the permit to build a garage.
Fifteen-thousand dollars & two years - just to get a permit to build a garage.. <== Let that sink in.
Think of that stark contrast: in Kiev, in a war zone with missiles flying, a US developer was able to completely build 82 houses from scratch in 22 weeks.
I suspect the approval process in Kiev didn’t get bogged down in traffic counts, dark sky movements, the location of pickleball courts, NIMBYs, green tree-huggers who want everyone to live like Little House On The Prairie and for whom all development is considered evil, and city planners who demand that developers bend-the-knee.
Yes, there is a role for governmental regulation in real estate development, but the US' system is broken beyond belief.
The irony is all that regulation (aka abuse of power) is based on our consent to be governed.
Furthermore, private property (which is mutually exclusive with real estate) is NOT subject to nor object of building codes, zoning, ad valorem taxation, etc, etc.
However, since 1933, it's been hard to alienate title to private property since there isn't much lawful money in circulation. (See: Art 1, Sec 8, Sec 10, USCON).
Do not believe me - go read the law for yourself. Ask your "public servants" to explain where their delegation of power begins and ends. Double check definitions in legal references - don't assume colloquiel meanings apply.
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