Kheldar LarsJun 19, 2024
Robert Reich
Why are we talking about whether paying fast food workers a better wage will drive up the cost of a Big Mac instead of asking how much McDonald's CEO's $19.2 million salary is driving up the cost? Hello?
Jun 18, 2024 at 10:08pmWeb
Show threadProfessor_StevensJun 18, 2024

@rbreich

Because raising pay for someone who makes less than me sounds like giving someone else something while giving me nothing. Capping the pay of someone who makes more than me sounds like lowering the ceiling above me.

Never mind that I am never getting anywhere near that ceiling, and would be much better off if the other guy's floor got raised instead. A true free-market idiot accepts the risk of having nothing if there is no limit to how rich he could be.

Yes, it is dumb.

Show threadchicatingJun 19, 2024
@rbreich Because CEOs would rather dine on the blood of the innocent.
Show threadmanieoJun 19, 2024

@rbreich There are 13,544 McDonald's in the United States, that salary is $1,417 per restaurant or 0.3 cents per customer. That's not a lot.

If he's the global CEO it's 0.08 cents per customer. That's tiny.

Show threadAaron Sawdey, Ph.D.Jun 19, 2024
@manieo @rbreich it’s not just the CEO salary… how much did they spend on stock buybacks and other things to pump the stock price? All of which compensates the CEO, just not directly as salary.
Show threadJonathanJun 19, 2024

@rbreich

The CEO's buddy owns the newspaper 🤷

(Edit: I know you know I just hate these hypotheticals because we all know why we don't end up having those discussions.)

Show threadStargeezer SmithJun 19, 2024

@rbreich
I think this "cut to the chase" method of exposing misdirected arguments should be known as:

"Reich's razor" , because Robert Reich is so adept at it.

Show threadheartedJun 19, 2024
@rbreich why aren’t we talking about the fact McDonald’s food isn’t real food, that as a backwards society we are nearing self destruction through global warming and the loss of our eco system, and that the amount of plastic people eat each day in their foods is nauseating. But yeah, hey, go eat that Big Mac. 🤮
Show threadyour_huckleberryJun 19, 2024

@rbreich probably because they sell like 900 million Big Macs every year, so even if the CEO's pay was solely funded by Big Mac sales, it would still only be 2.3 cents per burger. Put another way the CEO's salary was .14% of McDonalds operating costs for 2023.

What's noteworthy is that they had a net income of over $8bn with a 33% margin. They can afford to pay more and still be profitable without raising prices. The CEO's pay doesn't really matter to the people cooking the food.

Show threadKen GoldshollJun 19, 2024
@rbreich that is also the wrong question, the better question is why should taxpayers supplement the income of low-paid McDonalds workers with government-provided benefits? Why allow jobs that don’t pay people enough to live at even poverty levels?
Show threadJayne 🇪🇺🏳️‍🌈Jun 19, 2024

@kgoldsholl @rbreich

If businesses can’t afford to pay a living wage, they are not a viable business 🤷

Show threadAndi Popp 🇺🇦🎗️Jun 19, 2024

@rbreich Because McDonald's sells ~550 Million Bic Macs and employs ~1,3 Million people in the US alone.

The CEO's pay comes to ~0.035$ per Big Mac. Assuming a pay raise for every employee of just 1000$/year (0.5$/h at 8h/d, 250d/y), amounts to 1,3 bn$/year or ~2,3$/Big Mac.

Don't get me wrong. I am all for raising the wage of workers. It's just that 19,2M$/y is surprisingly low, e.g. compared to Elons ridiculous 56bn$ bonus.

Show threadRaj 🇬🇧🇪🇺💻🖥(🌻🇺🇦;🇵🇸)Jun 19, 2024
@rbreich I'm not arguing against the wage rise, but the maths is simple: the ratio of kitchen staff to burgers is orders of magnitudes lower than CEOs to burgers, so rather more influential on the individual price.
Show threadPaul Kuyper 🇺🇸Jun 19, 2024
@realcainmosni @rbreich @your_huckleberry @AndiPopp your 3 replies were right in a row and that was the same math I was thinking about. Regardless of your viewpoint, unfortunately, the math doesn’t work to reduce the CEO pay to create a cheaper burger. Too many burgers made.
Show threadRaj 🇬🇧🇪🇺💻🖥(🌻🇺🇦;🇵🇸)Jun 19, 2024
@8bit_PK @rbreich @your_huckleberry @AndiPopp Exactly so.
Show threadR. L.Jun 19, 2024
@rbreich
How about Krogers CEO making a Million+ a month & a 20+ MILLION annual bonus! 🤔
Show threadIan OllmannJun 22, 2024

@rbreich probably a better question is how much of a Big Mac is labor anyway? Surely the cows are the losers here, but that aside, if 20% is labor, doubling wages doubles wages but we’d only expect a 20% price increase. All and all, if everyone did this, we’d all win out and the economy would get a nice stimulus. Slowly starving workers until all the costs are raw materials just leads to no customers.

Obviously it isn’t quite that simple. Companies will want to protect their margins, so if cost go up, profit will have to too! They won’t complain about that part, to be sure.