McDonald’s reported a 35 percent increase in profits during the first quarter of 2016. That made three quarters in a row of positive financial performance for the golden arches people.
So it was good news for company executives and good news for company shareholders, all of whom will share in the company’s success.
And the company’s employees? You know, the people who pack the egg mcmuffins that drove all those profits, flip the burgers, and ask “Do you want fries with that?” with such gusto?
So, are those employees sharing in McDonald’s good times?
Not so much.
McDonald’s continues to pay huge numbers of its employees little more than minimum wage – and continues to insist that it exerts little influence over the franchise owners who employ most of those minimum wage workers. A federal judge hearing a complaint against McDonald’s filed by the National Labor Relations Board practically laughed at that argument.
Of course, McDonald’s employees can’t support families, can’t even support themselves, on minimum wage.
Consider it a sort of golden arch support
Not to worry: you, the American taxpayer, are subsidizing McDonald’s minimum wage workers – through things like food stamps, Medicaid, Obamacare health insurance premium subsidies, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and more – to the tune of about $1.2 billion a year.
But McDonald’s executives and shareholders made out great, and to them, that’s all that matters.
