Pay them more, and they will come.
133
For years here in LA County most of those working behind the fast food counters have been twenty- or thirty-something year old Latinas. That also goes for the managers who appear to be the gatekeepers.
My intelligent, well-spoken, well-groomed, well-mannered and polite (but caucasian) son has applied several times at three local McDonalds and other fast-food outlets but hasn’t received a call-back. And in every interview he’s been asked if he speaks Spanish. (It appears his considerable but non-Spanish foreign language skills have no local value so I’ve told him to focus on baseball and his grades instead.)
93
So many employers would rather have someone with customer service experience, and there are a ton of good jobs which only require an Associate's degree or some other kind of training. College isn't the be-all end-all that coillege admission departments pretend it is. There are a lot of majors that don't have many jobs at the end of the degree. I say, work in the mall, go to a state school and get something. But keep the job. Let them learn about taxes, juggling a schedule, interacting with folks from all walks of life. So they don't go to the amazing school. So what? The most important lesson in life is often to be happy while being average. You don't need a fancy job to be happy in life. This is more valuable a lesson than any degree from the Ivy League.
34
Another observation from my temporary life here in Michigan: like so many other "Anywhere America" towns, the landscape is full-to-exploding with fast food restaurants. As you pass through towns it's a never-ending string of McDonalds, Arbys, Burger King, KFC's and on and on and on. You can literally pull off the road every 100 feet and find somewhere to eat. One might think that all Americans do is shop and eat at these mini-filth-factories. It's no wonder there aren't enough workers.
There was a time when "fast-food" meant that food was involved. Face it, restaurants are the lowest-common-denominator types of businesses. The owners are out to make a quick buck off the backs of low-paid workers. They offer low wages, few benefits and lousy work schedules. And, for the record, anyone who believes that young people learn good job skills by working in these places are fooling themselves.
79
Great news! We should all thank Trump for the positive development. Finally, labor market is not distorted by cheap immigrants. Finally, market force will force innovations. In order to survive, business must be creative. Automation will be introduced to cut labor cost. I am very excited. To make America great again, we must bring the can-do spirit back. Cheap immigrants are bad to this country. The old business model was not sustainable. We cannot continuously bring in more immigrants. The easy and cheap ways of doing business are over. BTW, liberals should celebrate this development too. Finally, they will get their wage increase. Liberals, environmentalists, KKK are all celebrating. Wow! It is too good and it is true!
27
The economists at the Bureau of Labor Statistics hit it right on the nose. My son makes a good wage at a pseudo-fast food chain, Panera, making a good wage. But, he is searching for other jobs that pay more. Why? Because teens can't make nearly enough in the summer to pay for a year of college. When my husband and I went to college, we could do that. And, if you aren't on a college track, how the heck are you going to make ends meet on $11/hour? Or even save up so you CAN move out of your parent's house and be on your own? Perhaps these fast food chains need to offer scholarships for hard workers instead of academics; reward employees by supporting their dreams. Shouldn't all employers do that? :) Maybe they could "match" how much the kids save for college or something like that. Not sure. Food for thought.
34
Great news! Maybe it means an end to the plague that is killing America: fast food. If the owners of those places like MacDonald’s and Dunkin Donuts that are selling food-like products will be forced to raise prices, perhaps they will be struck with a novel idea: how about selling REAL food and charging more? I just came back from Italy and Israel where every street is lined with eateries - not chains but actual, individually owned restaurants, some very grand, some a hole-in-the-wall, serving yummy dishes that an average American doesn’t even know exist. And waiters in these places are either moonlighting college students or immigrants. I had a nice discussion of the situation in the Middle East with a waiter in Tel Aviv who brought me my sania (look it up!) and who is doing his degree in international relations. Are these places more expensive than a MacDonald’s? Of course. But Italy and Israel don’t have the terrifying obesity rates of the US, so perhaps there is something to be said for paying more, eating less and getting better quality food.
65
Franchise sellers have been screwing over the people who buy their franchises for decades. Look into that business model, the only franchise buyers that have a hope of making money have to own many, many outlets, probably have to try to make 'special' deals with the franchise., and hope like h*ll that the franchise does not change the rules on them, despite their large investment.
Mr. Kaplow? You are doing what generations of small store owners have done. You work in your own store because you cannot afford to hire help.
This is a new American tradition that differs from the old one where one person or family were responsible for their own business. That tradition went back through generations of immigrants, and most managed some sort of living and some did very well. There is a new brand of kool-aide being sold now. Subway, Starbucks, McDonald's, Wend'y, Super 8, etc. do not care about you. If you fail to deliver the margin they want, you will be shut down, as I am sure that you are finding out to your chagrin.
I hope you are not too surprised now that the promise of riches has proved to be illusory. It has for many, join the crowd.
Best wishes, and I really mean it. The system you are struggling with was not designed to help you, it was designed to deceive you. If you can manage it, get out, rethink your skills, and if you decide to set up your own little place, be prepared to work very hard, and you will have the reward to not being beholden to anyone.
40
Further evidence of how an obsession with traditional higher ed and credentialization are screwing things up. Where have all the teenagers gone? They're running around trying to participate in every sports team, after-school activity and volunteer opportunity they can get their hands on to appease the college admission overlords, or else are away at college or working menial internships or taking summer classes because companies have ridiculously high hurdles to get even an entry-level, full-time position.
Of course there is also that small point about how declining birth rates have left us with an overall shortage of young people in the first place...
30
As a retired Senior, I too would like to re-enter the job market but with all my knowledge and great strength, many younger supervisors become quite intimidated having clearly superior people employed under them. I also love Home Depot and realize that they have a problem with age discrimination, most cos. do.
As a retired senior, I know that my needs are less than some people having to support a family on a single income. I humbly suggest to some of my fellow seniors that we bend a little while also asking that the employers bend to us. I do not think that we should get more paid off time/vacation, that is counter productive. We are trying to fill-in and help others while helping ourselves. I would prefer a 4 day work week or working 6 hours rather than 8. I want to get enough rest to be able to do a good 6-8 hours. I will not do work for under $12 but I will bust my butt if I accept a job. I also do not do any drugs, never have so testing clean is assured.
Seniors are dependable to show up ON Time, ready to work.
57
Several comments on here refer to fast food work as "dangerous". What is so dangerous about fast food work?
1
This appears to be a story about teenage workers it is about a lot of the general work force
7
Not worth the cost of driving to and from such places with such lousy pay. Back in the 70s for an hours pay you could put 5 gallons of gas in your car. Not today.
29
Your employer having to provide access to healthcare is about as ridiculous as them having to provide access to law enforcement.
14
Given the choice between admitting or hiring the kid who works at McDonald's all summer, and admitting or hiring a kid whom Mommy and Daddy sent on a medical mission to Tanzania, I take the McDonald's kid.
29
None of these teenagers are working because they are all on my lawn.
32
Hopefully they are studying. Automation is the answer for junk fast food.
7
Is the US a market economy or not? Then what are these people whining about? If a ressource gets scarcer you have to pay more or change your business.
32
This is not just a restaurant problem. In Québec we have over 2000 well paid permanent government jpbs and no applicants
11
if your business model depends on paying people less than it costs to survive, your business model is theft.
55
The fast food industry drives its workers like slaves. Who would want to work under those conditions when a franchisee lords over them with a stopwatch?
26
Calling Subway etc. restaurants is a gross exaggeration,
Restaurants are much better when the owner is in the dining room.
15
No one wants part time work with constantly changing shift times and caps at 29 hours to avoid benefits. Remember, it was President Trump who reversed the Obama law that made companies pay workers who earned less than $44K overtime. Fast food has nickel and dimed everyone for decades and no one but an undocumented person will take these jobs anymore and in a tight labor market - even they don’t want these jobs either.
51
I know where the teens went- they’re busy prepping for college. College doesn’t consist of fast food work. In fact, college preps you for corporate so why waste your time on something that won’t help with college or your chosen career? These kids are getting their basic licenses for their chosen fields & start getting experience there.... because why waste your time on something that won’t directly help you? Also, affluent families like mine choose to let their kids be free for the summer. We travel all over the country & to Europe where they regularly take @ least a month usually 2 off through the summer. It’s family time. Fast food loses out because all these things are more important... && don’t forget how America kept trashing fast food as jobs only for teens through the recession & raise/cost of living wars. America’s youth & their parents were listening too. Now you all understand the power of words & can finally feel the effect such words had. Fast food jobs are the current scourge & very few parents want their kids around those jobs. That’s where the teens went. Good luck fixing that.
25
The other piece of this puzzle is that wages have not kept up with inflation. Though it is almost 4 years old now - this graph from the Pew Research says it all......
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/10/09/for-most-workers-real-wa...
No wonder people avoid these jobs...
19
Here's the tiniest violin in the world playing just for the fast food restaurant owners. When times are tough the business people always say, oh the market dictates your wages and sorry the market says you get nothing. When times are good all they do is complain about not having enough low paid staff. Guess what, the market now dictates that YOU pay more. More than you are currently paying apparently.
31
What else could he possibly do?
"Mr. Kaplow has tried everything he can think of to find workers, placing Craigslist ads, asking other franchisees for referrals, seeking to hire people from Subways that have closed."
5
This article doesn’t answer the question “Where Have All the Teenagers Gone.” That’s the chicken-or-the-egg issue central to the problem. But one thing is clear: Continued scarcity (or is it unwillingness?) of teenagers and adolescents for jobs in these industries will hasten the adoption of automation and robotization. Such automation will eventually spread to other sectors (it’s there already - see the auto industry) and result in an even bleaker job and wage outlook for those of lower economic status.
11
Also the older folks here forget,there is a new option to make money today that we didn't have. It's called the internet. If u can make at least the equivalent of min wage and never leave your house. Why would u?
8
Nice to see our economy still produces jobs. We don't build computers or refrigerators, but we're good on salami sandwiches. As long as we can keep the undocumented workers in the country to build them.
13
Cheap and convenient high-fat, high-carb, high-energy, energy-intense food and drink in mammoth servings is a big reason Americans are so fat.
In the USA in 2018, the price elasticity of fast food in a typical fast food joint is likely around one per cent. That means that if the price of fast food and sugar drinks were to increase by one per cent, then consumption of fast food and sugar drinks by the average consumer would drop by roughly one per cent.
5
Pay more and provide benefits and you wont’t have this problem. If demand is outstripping supply, economic theory says raise prices anyhow.
19
It was Henry Ford who worked out that if employees could afford the product he sold then all would be well.
This isn't a simple problem. It involves kids who don't want to work and aren't forced to (ask anyone actually hiring millennials about their work ethic and expectations) and the glut of just ridiculous fast food places as well as the poverty level wages.
Not a simple solution.
7
Many comments here seem to think that the problem is kids today just are too lazy or entitled to want to work. The fact is these jobs offer little in exchange for today extremely busy kids.They offer not only poor wages but also little or no resume value. The real problem is with an industry predicated on a business model that requires paying people so little that even working
40 hours a week puts you under the poverty line. So they are dependent on finding workers who do not need the money to live.
22
It's really funny that the "lazy millennial's" get all the blame.
It looks like "Fast food" has a serious problem, an aged business model which relies on starving wages in a really bad work environment. I was wondering why I don't like to go to Subways anymore. The answer is right here.
Maybe these chains just have to go away. At least Subway is already working on it. They are closing hundreds of stores.
19
As a free market advocate, the answer to this problem couldn’t be more clear. Instead of offering tiny bonuses and non-financial incentives, owners will need to reach into their pockets. I had lunch yesterday at McDonalds for $3.69. I have seen the luxurious homes and vacation homes of the owners. There is plenty of room both in pricing and in the current profit margin to raise wages. Workers are their own problem since there is always some willing to work for inadequate wages. If everyone walked out at once, they would all be hired back with a 50% raise. That’s Adam Smith’s invisible hand at work as he intended.
19
Can't find workers at the wages you want to pay? Pay more. It's the way the labor market works. Employers got fat and happy after the latest recession when they were able to pay minimal rates and still had more applicants than they needed.
Nobody owes you a living wage was their refrain. You want more money get another job, get training, work two jobs, get some bootstraps.
Now the bootstraps are on the other boot. Nobody owes you a profit.Nobody is obligated to work for you at sub-par wages just so you can be a successful business owner. Get another business, work harder, get two businesses. The free ride is over.
50
I won't have my child work in these sort of places. The new, enlightened generation would rather skip the fast food option and begin training at their chisels vocation.
75k/ year in college to flip burgers ( even temporarily), no thanks.....
10
Too many fast food joints; too few young folks to staff them. That's the problem in a nut-shell, leaving aside all the other aspect others have noted. I'll leave aside the concerns about teenage help in lower Manhattan...I mean come on...it's lower Manhattan for gawd's sake. Not exactly a plethora of teenagers live down there.
Anyway, how about hiring those aged folks who are still capable and perhaps wanting a little extra in their life? Not necessarily financially, just from the stand-point of staying involved in the greater community?
It's no panacea but don't lay this issue entirely at the feet of the young. They're just starting out in their lives; so it's expected they will be looking farther afield.
But those on the other end of that life's curve might want, even like, the job just as a means to pass the time and stay involved?
Just some thoughts worth about that much...
John~
American Net'Zen
9
I can't remember when I last ate at a national chain fast-food restaurant...maybe a dozen or so years past when one was the only "food" available on long overnight shifts in the hospital. If I'm eating out, it's only from a local place, never a national franchise operation. Lots of times, it seems the owner or owner's family is on site and it's nice to know the money I spend recycles through my community as opposed to dead-ending in some already rich shareholder's account in Boca Raton. More than that, just the thought of that degree of standardization, food that is exactly the same anywhere in the world, is creepy. I'll take my chances with local fare over whatever frankenfood Big Burger is trying to sell me. Maybe the underlying problems are more broadly systemic. Why work for a national chain where one has to dress in a polyester clown suit, serve junk food and be subjected to the whims of some faceless corporation? Instead, groovy kids work local in their own clothes, serve conscientiously prepared food, are part of a local entrepreneur's effort and get to pick the background music.
12
According to the comments posted here, teenagers are no longer interested in working fast food jobs because they are either playing video games all day while scarfing chips and soda or they are studying organic chemistry to get a head start at a topflight university. So I still don't know why they aren't serving me fast food anymore, though I have long wondered why. This is a job we all did in the 1970s.
8
I was traveling out of state and I stopped at a fast food restaurant. All of the employees were baby boomers. I felt humbled.
31
I don't really know where the problem is. This is capitalism, right?
Pay more and they will come.
41
There may be fast food jobs, but they don’t pay enough for an employee to live The American Dream — housing, food, transportation, health, education and retirement. That is why these jobs are the breeding ground for our loss of faith in our political/economic system and our growing susceptibility to hate speech and demagoguery.
Fast food jobs are no longer occupied by teenagers as this article implies, but by 35-yr old members of the working poor.
Also, the unemployment rate has accumulated so many fudge factors that it has become meaningless. For example, the labor participation rate for males 25-54 demonstrates that over 10% of these most-likely-to-work individuals are not working.
23
When I was a teenage I wasn't crazy about my menial jobs but I wanted money. If they aren't working where do kids get their spending money today? Their parents just hand them cash every week?
17
My first teenage job was working at a factory (summer work to help replace regular workers that were taking vacation time). That is something that I bet almost no teenagers do today. Too bad, because it was a great opportunity and eventually led to my career in engineering.
19
These employers should be hooked up with government aid programs.
Since there is a mandate to work for many people who receive various forms of aid, this ready pool of workers would satisfy the requirements for employers as well as aid recipients.
16
When I was in high school I got my first real job, working in a carpet store. It was a long walk from home. I missed dinner every night. The tasks were boring and not particularly educational. The pay was so low as to be almost meaningless. I quit. Soon after I learned from an older guy that brass and copper were valuable and could be sold to junk metal dealers at a good price. I got on top of that immediately, collecting brass from old bathroom fixtures and copper from a number of places. When the metal dealer told me that copper wires with insulation were worth a fraction of the actual copper, I experimented until a I found a way to remove the insulation. This was a boon, as other metal scavengers avoided insulated wire. Same thing with copper tubes covered with aluminum fins. I built a small furnace to melt the aluminum. When I was 15 I was making $200 in cash on a good week, having fun doing it, and learning to solve problems. My burger flipping friends made $25 a week. A capitalist might say that those burger flippers would learn about "work ethic" and "reliability." Really, those burger flippers were being trained to be capitalist tools.
26
When I was a teen there were many places to work. The cool jobs were record store or a local high end clothing store where you could use your discount. Fast food jobs weren’t the top jobs but if your friends were there you could have fun. Now, no record stores or cute boutiques. Amazon shut down much of local retailers. What’s left won’t guarantee a set of reliable hours week to week. Fast food tends to employ older people and non English speakers, not fellow teens. Also, kids are busy with sports and school activities. The world has changed.
25
The franchise food industry is a pyramid scheme that thrives on promising huge profits for its franchisees. It also takes huge profits in fees that make huge profits for the corporate elite. Dastardly greedy policies have been revealed, including intentional time card fraud that refuses to pay overtime and over-working "managers" who are compensated at effective hourly rates far below the legal minimum wages. Franchisees are restricted by being forced to procure their food and supplies from corporate sources at prices far exceeding what can be obtained in the "open market".
19
I started working at 16 delivering flowers at Christmas. I worked in a store at 18 and all through college, 20 hours a week. I also finished college in 3 1/2 years with a good GPA. I learned the value of a strong work ethic at a very early age. I don't see this work ethic much anymore. Learning the value of doing what it takes to get a job done is missing today. Learning to do menial tasks that no one else wants to do - well, we all have to pay our dues. What happens when this disappears altogether? It's a scary thought.
18
I think you are right. Hard-work ethic does come into play. Many of the college students I have worked with at my job seem to have an attitude of entitlement. However, we should allow for those kids who are hard-working, but either not wired to juggle 20-hrs week job and college workload or those whose schedule or environment (location) doesn't allow for this possibility. Overall, though, I think if a kid is a hard worker at a fast food restaurant, they are learning a work ethic. My son works hard and hates when things are slow. I love that. And, it motivates him to want to follow his decision to go to college. Unfortunately, it still doesn't pay enough to cover all his expenses...even with two generous scholarships.
14
A lot of comments here blame the teenagers, but they are rational actors like anyone else. Why work at a restaurant for $10/hour or less with an unpredictable schedule when other jobs out there pay more like babysitting, Uber, etc. The flexible schedule many retail outlets have wreck havoc with school schedules. How can one plan if a restaurant keeps changing your schedule and all for minimum wage.
What we are seeing is teenagers working in the informal economy or not working and focusing on AP classes and college applications, which often yield longer term dividends.
Millennials are no lazier, etc as baby boomer teenagers of yore. I’ve heard the stories of pot smoking teenagers of the 60s and I’m sure you can find NY Times articles of lazy teenagers back then.
Business owners are not entitled to under priced labor so either wages and/or conditions have to improve.
45
Yes, my teenagers aren't getting jobs this summer. They are attending summer school at college instead (they are both incoming freshmen). Neither of them (twins) has had a job (well, my son did do some work for an SAT prep center). Both of them took lots of AP classes and prepared for college rather than getting jobs. I have no problem with this as they both received full tuition scholarships for their academic work.
14
I was one of those pot smoking boomer teenagers. The grass was green but it wasn't free. I started working odd jobs outside the family at 14. At 16 I had a regular minimum wage part-time fast food job, "Don't cook tonight, call Chicken Delight!" At 18 I was driving a Chicago cab full time and didn't stop working until I retired at 67 this year.
What I don't understand about today's teenagers is how so many can gladly stay at home after high school. I shot out like a bullet.
10
And thus so will restaurant prices.....and by a lot. Especially when New York State is planning on ending the Tip Credit or "sun-minimum sage" for tipped employees.
Consumers are complaining about high restaurant prices now; just wait!
Donald Trump has delivered to his base on his promise to shut down the border. Not literally, but the number of undocumented workers seeking employment in my area has shrunk to near zero. So, wages are being driven up.
Prices are going to up. Considerably. This is what Trump voters were asking for and it's what they've gotten.
1
I needed someone to help me move my belongings, clothes, small stereo, food, etc., no furniture, from one condo which I was renting to another condo I was buying across the parking lot. There's some young boys 14-16 years old in our complex who I see coming home from school everyday. They get off the bus and you don't see them again. They stay indoors playing video games. I offered several of them $60.00 for what would have been 1.5 hours of carrying small items across the parking lot on a Saturday. No takers. They all turned me down. Suburban kids don't want to work, they don't have to. Their parents take care of them, so they sit home after school and play video games.
19
Yep.
I had a prospective Eagle Scout beating on my door asking for "donations" to fund his project, which was some sort of garden at an elementary school. A complete stranger. I said "well, I will pay you $15 an hour to help me with some yard work, as many hours as you want," and he couldn't get off the front porch fast enough.
Since my excellent yard helpers aged out of the gig, I have been employing a little local service that matches teenage boys -- all local high school athletes -- with homeowners wanting hourly help. These are kids from affluent areas, and their inability to stick with a task for more than 10 minutes is astounding. The put down the rake or shovel, talk with one another, check their phones, etc. -- as a 50-something petite woman I can dig harder and faster than they can!
Often after an hour or so they will start making leave-taking motions; if I say "Gee, I had booked you guys for three hours today, didn't (supervisor) make that clear?" they look horrified. I'm talking light gardening and yard work! That they are earning $15 an hour for. And they simply don't want to persist for more than an hour. Then they hop into mom or dad's $38,000 SUV and zoom away.
7
Maybe the kids didn’t want to go into some creepy old guy’s apartment? And maybe they make good money livestreaming their video game-play?
11
I came from a working class family that encouraged me to begin working at an early age. My first job at 13, was in a flower shop/nursery for 15 to 20 hours a week. In later employment, I picked tomatoes, washed dishes, and cleaned office buildings. Sometimes, I held down two jobs in high school. Grades suffered, but I learned the value of hard work from an early age.
Before and during college, I spent time working in the construction trades.
The amazing thing was how profoundly useful that experience was to me as a professional employee in my later years. It has also given me empathy and respect for the people who serve me at restaurants and pick up my garbage. I try to tip generously.
28
I started baby-sitting at 13 for $1 an hour; through high school had regular babysitting gigs, including two hours a day after school for the kids of a working mom, then began working as an office helper at 16 and in summers at age 17 through my college years for Kelly Services, doing clerical and light industrial assignments for an hourly wage. Did a variety of jobs during the school years, too.
It boggles my mind that young people get all the way through college without ever having earned a paycheck.
5
My 17 yo son, rising HS senior, works at our neighborhood Walgreens. My son has learned a lot about managing money, responsibility, etc. and helping out if they are short and need another person. We are lucky as the manager works w his football practice schedule and other school obligations, otherwise, he wouldn't be able to work (part-time).
13
I live and work in NW Connecticut, "the Quiet Hamptons" and have always hired young people for summer work on my conservation projects, always paying at least $5/hour over minimum wage. For the past few years, I have been unable to find enough kids to work, even when offering almost twice the minimum wage. And when I do get a few workers, most have no driver's license, show up late, leave early, and are highly unmotivated. Most of the kids around here want to work for caterers who cater to weekenders and their parties, paying $25/hour for a few hours a night. Heck, I started working in the orchards at age 12 and for less than minimum wage. Not sure what broke this new generation. Maybe when you're 15 and have an iPhone 10 and $150 sneakers you say to yourself, yeah, I'm good.
32
Try improving the working conditions and/or increase the wages. Clearly, the local supply of young people's time is worth more than what you are offering. As you point out, it cost a great deal today to have a cell phone and buy clothes, not to mention having a car and attempting to save for college. Why would these you people choose to work for you at even $20 an hour, when they can find jobs offer better working conditions for $25.
14
I started delivering newspapers when I was 11. I mowed lawns in the summer and shoveled driveways in the winter. I started working at McDonald’s when I was 16. Most of the kids I knew then (in the 60s and 70s) were doing the same thing. Not sure what young people are doing today to get spending money. My generation had to work for it.
11
There is definitely a problem and it’s that teens don’t want to work. When I was a teen, getting a job was a rite of passage. We were not well paid and there were always many others waiting to grab our jobs. Today we have parents doing so much for their kids that they feel no need to work. Add to that a sense of entitlement on the part of teens and there is your recipe for the dwindling teen workforce. I own a restaurant and have had many wonderful high school age employees but they are getting harder to find.
14
Clearly, you do not have any children who are teenagers. The demands on these kids today are enormous. They are expected to get nearly perfect grades, spend after school hours playing organized sports, participating in clubs and required volunteering. The fact is parents realize rightfully that if their kids are going to have a chance to get into college and compete for any merit scholarships, their kids need to spend their time on their school work instead of carting them to a low paying, menial job that offers them few if any job skills other than showing up for work on time.
16
So pay more, Susan. Then your job application rate will improve, you'll have more choice, and you'll end up with better employees. It's not rocket science — it's labour economics 101 and it's time that US employers learned it.
6
Not true. They can get better jobs working at places other than a fast food restaurant. “Kids today.” Same BS I heard when I was a teen in the 70’s.
8
These are the kinds of jobs that are one "technology DNA mutation" away from full automation. Why do we need people to do jobs are hard, require limited skill, and pay low wages?
9
"Why do we need people to do jobs [that] are hard, require limited skill, and pay low wages?"
Builds character.
3
TomW: Sadly, your comment is as correct as it is concise.
2
Low wages seem to be the problem for employee shortage. People prefer traditional jobs like banks,and new age jobs like the Silicon Valley among others. One more angle is one's value in the matrimonial market - fathers of girls may not prefer someone working in a fast food joint ,as son-in-law. Indian restaurants who operate south Indian food,recruit people from their villages - the employees get food,uniform,and they also sleep in their working place. Fast food joint owners should emulate this model. Is a career in fast food joints ,lucrative? Looks doubtful. Such jobs are only stop-gap arrangements,till one gets a more lucrative one,or becomes an entrepreneur.
4
To answer the title question, the teens have gone nowhere. The problem is as plain as possible.
I would recommend so called "business" owners read up the basics of supply and demand and price points. Whatever THEY may think teens need as pay is irrelevant. What matters is what the suppliers, ie the teens, WANT for their time.
28
Absolutely. There's lots of disparaging "back in my day" and "iPhones are ruining this generation" comments here. But this seems like a simple issue if supply and demand. Pay them more and they will come. Maybe teens are realizing they're better off studying for their SATs or doing research in a laboratory than working at their local Subway?
9
I remember a number of years ago, a woman wrote a letter to the local paper condemning artificial birth control. She said if that type of birth control continued there would be no workers for McDonalds. So I guess opposition to birth control is more about having low priced workers than morality.
27
They brought it on themselves with their 'flexible' schedules. The kids and parents NEED to know that Johnny always works on say Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, so transportation, school activities or family obligations can be planned. This, we will tell you Sunday what you are working next week just doesn't work when a kid's work schedule affects the whole family.
80
The chart shows the problem quite clearly , the growth of restaurants has far outpaced the growth of our teenage population which is very low.
This should send a signal to all of us that we have an ageiing population and there will be less young people to support the elderly going forward.
Robots , Artificial intelligence will help to fill the skills gap but they do not pay taxes.
We need a strong source of tax revenue to support the inevitable increase in Social Security and Health care.
The recent tax bill , the budget increasing military spending ( instead of efficiency) all erode substantially the tax base and leaves no lee way for the inevitable increase in the needs and SECURITY of an aging America.
33
I’ve worked at subway for almost five years. I started there when I was a senior in high school, now in a junior in college.
We get paid 7.25 the hour and in all the years I’ve been there I haven’t gotten a raise, not a single penny.
We don’t get our 15 minutes break, we don’t get lunch hour.
Can’t wait to graduate college so I can leave.
106
Managers of teens tend not to give raises unless asked. I'd bet you that others who have worked there fewer years get paid more than you do. Consider it part of your training to write out a script for asking for a raise, and then making an appointment to do it for real. You have nothing to lose, especially if the store tends to be short-handed.
3
Wages should be based on the value of the work performed, not the age of the workers. If the employer values the work at less than potential workers are able/willing to provide their labor, there is an imbalance that needs to be worked out.
10
Wages are not based on value of work. Like it or not, wages are based on how potential workers value their time and the needs. There are people that are willing--in many case out of necessity--to work on the cheap and others not so willing. Over the last decade business owners took advantage of desperate workers. Clearly many continue think the are entitled to cheap labor. Teens on the other hand, right or wrong, would rather do other things with their time.
One could rightly argue that teens are passing up opportunities to develop work skills, but this article is not about the value of ones first job or how much money teens need vs want. This is article is about supply and demand. As such, business owners are going to have compete, vis a vis better wages, to get the attention of teens or find a different supply of labor.
15
There is a similar article in the LA times this week, the problem is in all levels of restaurants, not just fast food. And, actually, it's not just restaurants, but all fields.
It's the millennial generation that is what's happening. I've been an employer for 20 years and hiring has never been as awful as it's been the past 7 or so years. It's a generation with no skills, no grit, no commitment, no passion and no care about anything. They readily move back in with their parents instead of working and then drive for Uber on occasion to get spending money.
Our average employee was there 3-4 years, now it's less than a year. And we pay well, much higher than industry averages. We have great jobs in a glamorous field where people used to fight to get hired. Now it's a struggle to hire anyone. We are very close to closing the business because of this.
There's a great video on youtube that sums up the issue called Millennials in the Workplace Training Video. That is what the reality is now, no matter what the field or type of job it is. It's mind boggling.
21
That video is wonderful. thx
Yep as a Millennial & US Marine (retired medically)- you’re wrong. We’re not awful. We’re not stupid. We’re not lazy. We don’t have commitment phobias. Quite contrary. We’re smart & have figured out why work for people like you when I can work for myself? I gave a certain amount of years of my life to the Marines, went to war came back home injured, went to college on GI Bill & then started a multimillion dollar company. Why should I work for someone like you when I can do it better than you? && on top of it, I can change the world with the money I’m making which I could have never done by limiting myself working for someone like you. Rule #1 about us awful millennials- we actually care about the earth & society. We care about each other & help each other. We support each other’s causes & charities too because we’re sooooooo awful!!!!
11
It's really strange that no one is addressing this issue from the teen's perspective. The teens I know are not working these sorts of jobs because they feel that taking this sort of work will hurt them when they apply for college. College admissions are so competitive these days, in terms of percentage accepted and the quality of those rejected, that working at a restaurant can seriously hold a student back when they could instead study more, volunteer, or get some research experience.
54
This is complete garbage. I speak as an alumni interviewer for a so-called "exclusive" college.
1
Economics 101, if the owners paid higher wages, they would attract more workers. But of course they would then also charge more for their foot-longs, burgers, and pizza slices so pretty soon customers would quit coming and the owners would reduce wages, or lay workers off. Pretty soon an equilibrium is reached in which everything balances out. So apparently the small limited service restaurant industry is not in equilibrium at the moment. But it will be. Just be patient. I really don't see this as a big deal.
15
Scott, you're absolutely right about the system finding its equilibrium. But there are probably some interesting lessons here about demographics & culture.
2
You don't see it as a big deal - possibly because you haven't invested in a fast food franchise hoping it will provide you with enough to retire on.
Interesting to hear all the commenters calling for higher wages. Higher wages for fast food workers means higher wages for fast food customers, many of whom have not had a real raise themselves in years. So raising wages may end up costing a business customers. That is the balance that has to be struck. The margins for these places are extremely thin. You can't satisfy the consumer's demand for cheap prices while also paying high wages to employees. Something has to give.
11
Franchise fees? Taxes? Maybe those could give
Australia its 18 an hour at McDonald's but a big mac costs 25 cents more here. Things that make you go hmmm.
2
All these people talking about market forces. The real reason is: Too much welfare/food stamps/Medicaid/etc. No need to work. Cut out the free food from the government (or, more accurately, from those of us who work hard and pay very high taxes), and people will line up to work.
13
A lot of people who get food stamps, Medicaid, etc., are already working these kinds of low-wage jobs, which is why they need food stamps, Medicaid, etc., to survive. Those who work hard and pay taxes are subsidizing corporations, not people.
32
The people on food stamps and medicaid are todays fast food employees.
8
*snort* Try living off of welfare and food stamps. Go on. I dare you.
5
How open are these restaurants to hiring ex-cons? Many ex prisoners have difficulties getting a job.
And yes, improved wages, benefits, more consistent schedules and respect would make fast food and retail jobs in general more enticing.
31
True, it may be a great place for ex-cons. Parents of teens, however, then would not have their kids apply to work there as well.
1
Good idea. Ex con's need a chance to live a better life.
2
I have zero sympathy for these franchise owners. Pay more as some have and they will get better workers. These workers today are making about half what they did 20 years ago inflation adjusted. It makes sense teenagers do other jobs like babysitting, mowing lawns, etc. You can earn $20/hour babysitting versus $10/hour doing sweaty work at a fast food joint. Market forces at work.
75
Wages are too high to warrant the hiring of inexperienced workers. Simple as that. Economists (the good ones) have been telling people about the pitfalls of minimum wage legislation all along. It is amusing and scary to see the purported reasons people come up with the explain what is essentially a well understood result of price floors.
2
Like other commentators, I am well past my teen years. My parents bought our new house in South Florida for $30,000 in 1970. I was paid $1.65 an hour to work 40-50 hours a week at Pizza Hut when I was in high school. (I worked 20-24 hours on the weekend.)
When I went off to college at UF (where tuition was about $200-$300 a semester in 1974), I got a job as a server in a steak house and began earning closer to $15 an hour in 1975, consisting of mostly tips.
My son is 29. He feels lucky that he just got a job at UPS that pays about $12 an hour to start, working part-time. He is also compensated with excellent health insurance and he is starting college late in life next week. UPS will reimburse him up to $5,500 in tuition in his first year, which will more than cover his tuition costs at A community college.
Even making $30 an hour, though, he would never earn enough to buy my mom’s house which is worth about $450,000 today.
There are too many fast food joints selling garbage food that require desperate people to work for subsistence wages. It is not a sustainable model. And I am worried for my son and his generation. Without a college degree (from a genuine brick and mortar college), he will not likely make enough to maintain the standard of living which we have provided for him growing up. Not even close.
It’s no surprise that subway is having a hard time getting employees to do their work for them for thee starvation wages.
112
One issue is that the requirements to work and participate in “high school co-op” jobs has changed, today the jobs a student can participate in and earn graduation credit most be aligned with a career that masks the career tech classes they take in high school. Another issue is the heavy emphasis on developing “college and career readiness” which in turn reduces free time for students to work in fast food jobs.
13
I have zero, and I mean zero sympathy for these franchise owners who have gotten a free ride for decades on the backs of individuals earning minimum wage or less with no fringe benefits. Pay a living wage with benefits and I'm sure you would have no trouble hiring competent people to staff your stores. True, your product might be a bit more expensive but the cost of fast food on our health far eclipses it. Less fast food would help control the obesity problem and higher wages would support a living wage. A win, win if you ask me.
129
So in the case of my son and his friends, they are taking a few AP classes or more a a year- and they are doing homework until midnight (after music, sports commitments), etc. Those APs (not the exception in our area outside of DC) translate into about a year of college credit before you even get there! so it translates into a lot of money actually, more than they'd make at a fast food restaurant
81
That’s what my kids are doing too. We even have a program that lets your kids leave high school with an associate’s degree cutting off 2 years of university tuition!! We don’t have time for fast food. We have time for things that help get into college & help our chosen careers take off. It’s my job as their parent to make sure they prepare for real life & make sure they make good career choices; sustainable choices. Once career is established, it’s my job to support their choices & help them do whatever they can to further it while in high school & college. Once they’re out of college, they’re on their own. I’ve given them everything I can. My kids stay up to midnight sometimes all night trying to get their work done. Play sports & volunteer on the weekends too- there’s zero time for fast food. We have a mission & as a Marine, I’m staying the course until my mission is completed. We’ve spent years prepping for this. I’m not letting greedy needy subway franchise owners get in the way of my kids’ success. Ivy League & those opportunities are far more important to us.
10
Teenagers are not consciously opting out of work. The environment around low-wage work has deteriorated to such an extent that survival, cost-benefit "instincts" are coming into play. Or, take this job and shove it?
33
They are sitting at home surfing on the internet and getting heavy. Our military found that when they had to discharge many for being unfit. That is why they are now letting people with mental issues in with wavers and some with criminal records. Blame it on lack of parenting.
8
All labor problems can be solved with higher wages and better working conditions. Problem solved! Presto! Next problem for me to solve?
54
So what happened to the tax reform savings just passed by Congress? No mention of wages.
McDonald’s Corp. (MCD) said, “the first priority is clearly to invest in the business for growth, and then we’ll consider dividends and share buyback.”
https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/this-is-how-google-mcdonalds-and-oth...
There is a low-wage bubble and it's about to explode into an inflationary trend as businesses are forced to increase wages to survive and grow by attracting workers willing to accept only reasonable wages ($15-$25 to start). Immigration restrictions will exacerbate the problem.
25
All the worste face on the USA concentrate in one place : worste of the industrial agriculture, source of obesity, low wages without health insurance, reign othr advertising, standardizations of the taste. I need to go to the Met to purify my mind.
8
Who wants a McJob? Teens are busy trying to get into good colleges so that they will never have to say, 'Do you want fries with that?' ever in their lives.
46
Treating employees like garbage and paying them peanuts is not working and employers are willing to do ANYTHING to get that sweet, cheap labor back other than treat employees better and pay them better wages. The free market at work, folks.
51
How many of these franchise owners would want their children to work in their restaurants? The work is exhausting, the pay inadequate. People are smarter these days. They are not going to slave away to put money into the owners pockets. The pay for this work should be higher than it is - a lot higher. If the franchise owners cannot make the money they want, perhaps they can go into another business. Fast food is unhealthy and the packaging destroys our environment.
51
These are dead end jobs, of course. They are perfect for teenagers because it's a first job, not a career. This is the job where they acquire some people skills and learn how to show up on time. The problem today is that teenagers are spoiled and don't need to work because parents do the providing. It's an entitled generation and does not bode well for the future.
15
I was thinking how menial jobs in high school teach a work ethic as well as the desire to get educated and not have to do those kinds of jobs again. So kids won't have jobs until they graduate college in their early twenties? They might be in for a shock.
15
No, Melissa, these are mostly crummy jobs that pay little,not enough for people who actually need a job to support themselves or their families. Certainly not enough to cover attendance at one of the state universities in Michigan. And unlike apprenticeships and internships, they are more directed at providing robots for a particular system, rather than developing useful work skills. Unless no other alternative to video games or crime are available, most of these jobs are a waste of time: little pay, little experience, and little value in getting to be a Wolverine or Spartan. Truly a dead end.
5
This business model was never meant to survive long term. After 25 years as a chef, most recently doing development for large corporate chains like "The Arches" and "The Girl in Pigtails", I left food all together. Like most capitalist ventures, these chains squeeze every dime from their franchisees who have to squeeze labor budgets and food budgets to work. Is it really surprising to anyone that people are getting wise to the fact that almost ANYTHING is better than working in fast food/fast casual?
This isn't shocking. What's shocking is that consumers continue to slowly kill themselves with high sodium, high sugar meals while doing a disservice to the employees simply by patronizing dinosaur models that should have died long ago. It is the assembly line of food and it speaks volume about the absence of self-esteem, self-control and legal addiction that kills whatever it touches (with the exception of investor portfolios).
43
Teens today are not like teens of my generation, or any previous generation. It's staggering how many young teenage girls are glued to their cell phones constantly accessing social media and texting. How would they ever have the time to work? I have noticed in the last year just about every restaurant in my town has a sign in their window .... help wanted. Good luck I say.
17
This is a bunch of malarky. Cheap employers now have to pay up because the economy is improving. That's NOT a problem.
Getting fast food workers in the inner city is no problem.
Getting fast food workers in the suburbs is a problem. Minority kids in cities without cars cannot get to the restaurants because there's no mass transit. The solution is allowing jitneys. Most suburbs disallow jitneys in order to keep out minorities from the nearby cities.
For the past 40+ years, and much more often in the past 20 years, fast food places have used information technology to minimize labor costs and benefits. In much of the USA, people are working 2 to 4 fast food jobs for 29 hours a week, maximum, under 30 hours so no benefits are required by law. Most of those workers are purposefully NOT given regular hours and are required to sign non-compete agreements. Rest assured, if teenagers could be assured of 5 regular hours every week day and 10 hours on one day of the weekend, so they would get benefits, more than enough teenagers will go to work.
More than 5% of able bodied men and women between 50 and 70 left the work force in the past 20 years and would return to the work force, even in low status jobs like fast food, IF they are treated like human beings without the arbitrariness currently imposed on teenagers. There is a very simple solution to the current labor shortage: treat employees well and pay them a competitive wage.
65
the fast food business model does not allow for a competitive wage
Maybe we need to allow more immigrants, and legalize any currently here without authorization, to help fill these type of positions? That would be best for our economy in the long run.
8
Automation is swiftly changing the employment situation worldwide, especially in North America. As more and more people are replaced by machines, work hours must be reduced to maintain full employment. This reduction in work hours will eventually have to result in guaranteed incomes for Americans to remove them from the workforce; something which is currently being introduced in a few other countries.
The children and grandchildren of those who we admit today will be competing with current American's children and grandchildren for a piece of that guaranteed income. The living standards of our progeny will be diminished by the progeny of any future immigrants.
While it's true that many immigrants come here with skills and talents, we have many skilled and talented Americans who could fill those same roles but are less likely to be hired because they expect to be paid more; businesses prefer to hire immigrants because their lower salaries improve the bottom line.
Also, consider the brain-drain: When we bring in the best and brightest from foreign lands, we are depriving their home countries of the rewards of future improvements, almost guaranteeing them permanent second and third class status. For the greater good of both poorer countries and the future well-being of current Americans and their progeny, it would be best to close our borders to all, including the most talented.
10
It's a simple problem of supply and demand.
Employers have to pay more for a scarce resource. No one is feeling sorry for them.
6
Maybe not. Employers who will not pay living wages should not be in business.
2
Here's a thought: pay higher wages. "If you pay them [enough], they will come...."
20
These people have tried everything except a real increase in wages. Offering a bonus when you make 100 hours, this is a joke. The result of higher wages is that some fast food places will go out of business. That is not a bad thing. If they paid $15 and hour, even without good benifits, they would probably have no problem staffing their restaurants.
22
This is the way our economy is supposed to work- wages should rise when positions cannot be filled.
Not what we have been doing- keeping wages artificially low by importing poor people from the third-world.
We have been punishing working class, and low income, citizens for decades now with our nonsensical immigration (and illegal immigration) policies.
It is time to help all our citizens and not just the rich ones.
23
Gen X here. My parents encouraged me to work at McD's for my first job.
The treatment I received on the job by customers and coworkers alike (customers cussing me out, manager telling a 15 year old she was faking a seizure) was so cruel and disrespectful that I made sure none of the young people I knew would even think of applying to a fast food restaurant.
Maybe the chickens of employee mistreatment are finally coming home to rest.
69
Your response deserves to be a NYT Pick for the truth it tells.
2
My fast food job at 16 did nothing to help me with my education - but it did wonders to help me realize why I ought to get an education.
50
My daughter came home from her job and said, "You make more money in one day than I make in a week. And my feet hurt."
"Go to college," I replied.
18
Call in the robots...yet another industry ripe for a technological disruption
4
Actually, this is happening in Japan. The customer chooses his items, pays, gets a receipt and picks up the food.
2
So much entitlement...so little time...do many of you actually know any teenagers or post-high school grads? I worked in public education (secondary level) for 30 years...teenagers have become more self-centered than ever before...you can try to blame so much social media involvement, too many school activities, etc., but the real contributors are parents who have abandoned teaching their children how to be better human beings and responsible adults. How about the simple things like emptying the dishwasher or mowing the lawn, sitting down to dinner, running the vacuum...if you really think kids have way too much on their plates that they cannot learn how to participate in something as small as the family dynamic, then you are sadly mistaken. What makes you think they will be willing to follow the rules of employment?
One person commented that he/she didn't say anything when an employee didn't show up for a shift because of the fear that they wouldn't come back to work at all. Instead of being afraid to lose an employee who doesn't want to work, the employer needs to continue seeking out those who do -
8
Employees have no incentive to work hard at a job that pays minimum wage. This is especially true if there's a surplus of similar jobs out there.
5
Today, the percentage of Americans, especially teenagers, willing to work is abysmally small.
Everyone wants a job - very very few want to work.
5
I dunno. I stopped eating fast food years ago. Saved me lots of $'s and cost me 30 lbs.
12
If you work 40 hours a week at minimum wage you are living in poverty.
Let's recap: Working full time, your income is still below the poverty level.
Like dozens of multi-billion dollar companies, General Electric hasn't paid a single dime in taxes in ten years.
Let's recap: General Electrics tax position is actually a revenue stream.
Corporate America has bought our government and it's courts, and they have externalized on to consumers every possible cost of operation down to the penny. Things that are enjoyed by every single person in almost every industrialized nation in the world are completely unaffordable in the United States.
Subway and others are having problems because, unlike a majority of American companies, their business model isn't based solely on usury. It it was, lettuce would be extra, mayo would be extra, napkins would be extra, sitting in the store would be extra, and there would be an "entering the store" fee.
This also mean that restaurants are one of the few businesses left were you actually have to work hard to make the things work. Owners and workers alike.
You know who doesn't have a labor problem? The financial sector - because it's all usury.
So, the fact that it is hard for these employers to find employees indicates that they are probably pretty decent people, because their business model isn't based on soulless corporate profits.
15
General Electric suffered massive losses about ten years ago with the collapse of their lending division and has been able to carry over those losses against profits.
I did the same thing.
You can, too, if you have capital losses.
2
It is a form of neo-colonization of the USA.
1
The pay is rubbish so why bother working for that.
10
I believe the future is in restaurant automation. Use robotics to flip burgers make fries, they already have kiosk to take orders.
1
This is patent nonsense if you think teenagers aren't working like they used to because they're busy chasing scholarships instead. How many high school kids are academically gifted enough to qualify for scholarships? And how much do those scholarships offer? And why can't teenagers do both- hold a part time job for spending cash while spending their other time maximizing every possible scholarship at their disposal? That's how we did it not that long ago.
Instead it's simple supply and demand. Raise the wages and watch those jobs get filled. Similarly benefits have nothing to do with it- those jobs we had as lifeguards, mowing the neighbors' lawns and shoveling their snow, scooping ice cream or handing folks their Big Macs never came with benefits.
A hundred dollar bonus for staying on for more than one hundred hours? A dollar an hour when the cost of retraining a new employee is twenty times that? Sounds like the Republican tax plan for the middle class. If those employees don't spend the bonus in one place, they can buy a cup of coffee at Starbucks twice a week for the next three months!
Anyone here feel sorry for the franchisees? Maybe it's time to charge more than 5 bucks for a foot-long sub made from the cheapest ingredients available.
19
Since the author did not expressly mention it it I will. Dirt cheap restaurants are dead. Look at walmart, 50% of their employees are on welfare if some sort. Perhaps if we had national health care, real pensions, good schools, and decent housing then maybe you could pay people $10/hr for all those "extras" that teenagers and others need. If you don't? Many more businesses will disappear. Your choice.
18
How much, I wonder, does Keith Miller make from the hard work of the underpaid employees at his three Subway restaurants?
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/05/there-is-no-teacher-shortage
This article is about the false notion 'teacher shortages' that outlets such as NYT have been writing about in the wake of the walkouts, but is broadly applicable to any industry. There isn't a shortage of workers: People rightfully conclude that they don't want to work in bad conditions. Quite simply, no one should have to subsidize the wealth of people like Keith Miller by taking substandard wages.
13
Some kids that work in fast food get hooked on the relative ease and what to them is real money and become lifers. Fast food isn't a good job for kids. A good job for kids must do more than just pay for car insurance, it must provide some kind of path for advancement to a real family-wage job.
7
The level of entitlement of fast food owners is breathtaking. No one is entitled to cheap labor. Free market conservatives even fail on recognizing this point because if you have to pay teenagers more to make your sandwich then you have to pay underpaid "skilled" workers more as well. Even left-leaning business owners expect cheap labor. I currently know one in particular protesting the AZ legislature #RedforEd for higher teacher salaries, but at the same time saying that employees of his sandwich shop do not deserve more $$ because "it's not that kind of job."
19
"Mr. Kaplow has tried everything he can think of to find workers, placing Craigslist ads, asking other franchisees for referrals, seeking to hire people from Subways that have closed"
I don't see "raising pay" in that list of "everything he can think of."
54
The concept of a “starter” job for teenagers is, of course, obscene. They are paid less than their work is worth — which becomes conditioning to being underpaid. It is also a form of wage age-discrimination.
The low-price — relying on below-subsistence wages — business model is obscene. Whether it be a fast food restaurant, a big box store, or a ... you name it. And who needs the super-low prices? The very people working for below-subsistence wages at these same stores.
Let us raise wages — and raise prices — and give everyone a fair deal.
10
How much do you think a teenager with a ridged schedule who is working their first job is worth? They are slow, most haven’t figured out how to arrive on time or keep commitments. Half will quit in a month, thus costing more in training, pay and recruitment than they offer in labor. They aren’t worth $15/hour up front.
Now, say the kid has a few thousand hours of experience in the job and always arrives ready to work. They can work in a team and learn new responsibilities quickly. You’d better give them a raise because, if they are smart, they will find a better job that values their labor appropriatly.
Wonder wonder how many of these people yelling pay more are willing to pay more for the product. I’m sure they will all say yes. Then how many of you actually put anything the tip jar. Seriously without lying. Because if everyone tipped only a dollar all workers could get a raise right now. Be the change you want the store owners to be.
3
Employers pay as little as they can for workers and charge as much as they can for their product. The difference is profit.
Although wages will increase if workers cannot be found willing to work for minimum wage, the cost of labor cannot just be passed along by raising the cost of the product as the cost of the product must be competitive.
That's the marketplace.
5
Where's the automation and robots that are supposed to take away jobs? Maybe they'll show up faster than we think, since workers aren't applying. I don't blame teens, if they have other priorities, another revenue stream, or preparing for college. I don't assume they are all just slackers.
4
They will likely show up soon, but business are too cheap to invest in them now just like they are too cheap to pay enough to attract decent employees. Once they are just flat out unable to find any workers and wages jump up then automation will start to kick in as well.
2
Oh, how times have changed. When I was a teen in an old industrial city in Upstate NY, the local economy was so bad that unless well-connected, one couldn't even get a job a McDonald's.
8
A couple years ago when a $15/hr minimum wage was proposed, conservatives screamed about overpaid teenagers at fast food places, and how such ridiculously high wages would just get more of them fired by those fast food stores that couldn't afford such undeserved largesse.
Yeah, except here in the real world, those stores are finding out on their own that they NEED to pay higher wages in order to achieve even minimum staffing of their stores, and that those lazy overpaid teenagers have just gone somewhere elsewhere they aren't humiliated for a low salary.
17
Also the avg age of min wage worker is 29. In more factory jobs so they have to do something.I haven't seen a kid working in a fast food place in forever. It's all their parents.
4
"I don't know what teenagers do all summer." As if they're just sitting there eating those gosh dang tide pods.
No, these teenagers are doing unpaid internships or extra classes or volunteer trips or other college application-boosters to stay competitive. "I worked at Subway every summer" just doesn't cut it when the kids getting the acceptance letters and scholarship awards are writing "I created an app that fights climate change while I was in Haiti building houses, and then I went home to work at the hospital for a few weeks where I cured cancer."
The millennial/Gen Z bashing is getting old. Instead of blaming teenagers for not working at burger joints, why don't we blame the boomers and Gen Xers for creating a college environment where teenagers feel like if they waste any time getting a normal job they'll get left behind?
28
As an elderly boomer and semi-retired academic physician heavily involved in college admissions, I affirm your statement with one qualification. An “ordinary job” might very well enrich many applications, especially if it develops skills and responsibilities. But not a robot -in- carbon- based- lifeform fast food job. And the miserable pay will not make a dent in tuition or loans.
17
For college bound students, the experience of working in menial, service industry jobs can be valuable. I had to learn how to work with people from other backgrounds with different family and life experiences than I knew from my family and friends. I learned about working really hard in less than pleasant environments. I learned humility; I was not too good to clean the bathrooms. These were important life lessons, apart from the money I earned, which was valued more because it was hard-earned.
14
I am glad for your good experience, and I suspect that you are the type of resilient person who can get the best out of any situation. I also suspect that you had good bosses. Based on my contact with many other people your age, I regret that your experience has been atypical. The experience that I had growing up on a farm, despite its imperfections, would have been much better for many teens stuck at Burger Biggie.
4
Back in the late 60's, minimum wage in New York was $1.60 an hour and my college tuition (not including room, board, books or fees) at a private college for the year was $1290. So if one worked a 40-hour week (I worked 90 during the summer) and ignoring taxes for purposes of this argument, you'd have to work 20+ weeks to pay a year of tuition. The NYC subway fare was 20 cents, so the minimum wage was 4x the round trip fare.
Today, with a NYC fast food wage of $13.50 (it's lower elsewhere in the State and there are still places in the country where they still only pay the Federal minimum poverty wage of $7.25), but private school tuition of at least $30,000 (and as high as $70K), you'd have to work 55 full-time weeks to pay a year of tuition. The NYC subway fare is $2.75 so the minimum wage is only 2.45x the subway fare. And taxes are much higher so workers come home with less.
I don't remember specific prices at McDonald's, but a hot dog at Nathan's was 25 cents in the late 60's and a small fries was 15 cents. Today, it's $4.50 for a hot dog and $3.75 for a small fries. So their prices have increased by a factor of 21.9, but minimum wage has increased by only a factor of 8.44 (and that's only in NYC and only for chain fast food workers). Federal minimum wage has increased by only a factor of 4.5.
So it shouldn't be a surprise that people don't want to work for these wages. And it's corporate greed that's killing this country.
45
in the Denver area we have been at less than 2% unemployment for 4 years. this is for entry-level and mid-level jobs everywhere. if you want a dishwasher here in Denver you're going to have to pay them $16 - $17 an hour. There are not enough employees to be had. People are not having babies and we are not bringing in immigrants. This is a problem. it took me 6 months to find an entry-level person at 18 an hour. someone who can type and do 10 key. That's the scope of the job. this is happening all over Colorado and it has been for 4 years. if businesses cannot hire people, they will have to close their doors or move elsewhere. This is not a question of money... it's a question of no employees to work.
4
I pay my babysitter more than that. Her job is certainly more important, but that’s what you’re up against. My brother-in-law lost his professional job and would have taken anything, but had children at home, so would need to pay for childcare during some of his work hours. Instead, my sister worked, he stayed home and worked on a certification online while his kids were at school. Happily, he’s back at work now.
3
A canary in the coal mine, with respect to the economic consequences of our present immigration policies.
What this article doesn't go enough into is the market forces at work. If a franchise restaurant is so understaffed, is it causing decrease in revenue and profit? The number of restaurants is steadily increasing, have they become over saturated yet, or is the demand keeping up? If business is growing, and demand is outpacing supply of workers, market forces say you should pay more for wages and you'll attract more workers. And if it increases revenue and profit it is worth it. So something doesn't add up in the story if they can't find workers, but can't increase hourly rate even a little.
15
I would agree that’s there’s more pressure on teenagers to be involved in clubs and have excellent grades to not only get into their pick of college but also to get a scholarship. And yes, those clubs matter.
While I worked a part time job my junior and senior year in high school, I also did volunteer work and was part of multiple clubs. When it came to reviewing my application after I was accepted, I was upgraded to the next tier of scholarship.
Compare this to my friend who was only in one club but worked crazy hours at her job while in high school. We had comparable grades and applied to the same college. When it came time to review her application, she was not upgraded on her scholarship. And they explicitly said it was due to her lack of school activities. This was over ten years ago. And scholarships are very helpful to middle and low class families.
I’m not arguing that teenagers should not work to gain valuable experience. But for some families, it isn’t an option. If a teenager can’t drive or lack a car, it may be difficult for the parent to drive them or loan a car for them to get to the job. In addition, many adults now have jobs that are forcing them to work longer hours, making it difficult for parents to work around a part time work schedule. A lot of part time jobs are not going to accept applicants that can only work on Saturdays and Sundays.
I see some high schoolers working but it’s primarily adults or college students. Uni is very competitive here.
17
I'd wonder - what sort of neighborhood are the stores in? Can teenagers get there by public transit, or on a bicycle? Can the schedules be regular enough that a student can fit one of these jobs in around a few classes at a community college? Are they expecting the young people to have experience? (They probably won't. They're young.) And what are they paying? Minimum wage doesn't go far- and they might also consider that some of these young people are working to help the family get by, or actually out of the nest at 18.
11
The obvious answer is to pay the workers more maybe like a living wage. But that's out of the question. Capitalism isn't for workers, it's only for the rich.
31
Why has nobody mentioned the obvious fact that there are less teenagers period to fill (and compete for) those jobs?
8
When I was a teenager working minimum wage jobs you could actually save enough to help pay for a large part of college tuition.
Minimum wages have not kept up with inflation and college cost have grown much much faster than inflation.
We did the cost benefit analysis and our kids will come out ahead if they spend the summer on SAT prep and or in unpaid internships that will help them on their career path.
We realized that a 150 point jump in SAT scores, a real possibility, could be worth 20k per year or 80k over four years in merit scholarships.
Working at a fast food place making minimum wages does not make economic sense.
94
"The real answer is always in the comments"
The wages paid by these sorts of jobs have been completely eclipsed by the exponential (and unwarranted) rise in college tuitions, so the "earning money for college" gambit seems almost laughable given the tiny dent that a summer's savings will make in the overall cost.
Students who are headed for university are likely thinking this way as well. Those who aren't (or who have decided that the expense of a university education won't be recouped) are likely involved in apprenticeships, community college training or other programs to get them into the mainstream workforce as quickly as feasible.
17
Reality Check: during the late 1980s, we measured turn-over rates at fast food restaurants nationwide, and they were roughly 200% per annum; the 133% cited in this article is much lower.
6
I would be more than willing to pay more for goods and services if workers were paid more. And I'd be really happy to pay more for food etc. if I could be spared the onerous tipping issue. Taxpayers are forced to subsidize low-wage workers for healthcare, housing, SNAP, aid to dependent children...you name it....in order for big business to make their millions. Nobody can live on $10. an hour.
52
You are forgetting Walmart’s customers - also often poor, looking to feed and clothe the families cheaply. It’s easy from a middle class or upper middle class perch to make these pronouncements about raising wages because you don’t consider the down stream affect on poor consumer spending.
5
Hello! your modern summer job earns you enough to pay for your textbooks. When I was younger the $1.25 minimum wage in summer could pay for your books and 1/3-1/2 your tuition. I was makin 2.30 in a factory during the summer a good factory wage and I paid for most of my tuition. No student make enough in the summer to make a serious dent in ones tuition.
46
And add to that the reality that college admissions have become more competitive -- kids are spending the summer doing things that look good on their college application. Working at McDonald's isn't one of them.
34
I wonder what the geographic distribution of this problem is. I was lucky enough to go to an economically diverse school. Nearly all the kids from the poorer neighborhood, including myself, held down minimum wage jobs during high school. But the kids from the upper middle class neighborhoods didn't have time to work -- they were too busy getting straight A's in all their AP science classes, starting a club, volunteering and doing sports.
In areas with really concentrated wealth, you're not going to find teenagers who have time to work. Their 'job' is getting into Harvard. But in the areas of concentrated poverty, there are always unemployed adults with open schedules to work at the Dollar Store or KFC...no need to bother with teenagers whose school schedule must be accomodated.
36
When my children were in high school and college, I discouraged them from working. I told them that they would earn more in their first week of work after they graduated from college than they would for the entire summer. School was their job.
24
School actually isn't a job though, and an actual starting job might have prepared them for the real one.
10
My son's study for the PSAT made him a National Merit Scholar finalist, which, along with his grades brought him scholarships at all the colleges that accepted him, ranging from $17,000 to $40,000/year. That's more than 2 years of working 20 hours/week at minimum wage. His AP classes and test scores earn him enough credit to skip a year of college --- that's another $10,000 to $40,000 depending on where he goes, or more than a year of working 20 hours a week at minimum wage.
I might agree that working would teach him more real world skills than figuring out how to ace the multiple choice tests, but the latter was, by far, the better investment of his time.
31
If teenagers could approach school with the same motivation than adult approach jobs with, wouldn't that be a good thing, though ? (Says a man who approached school, and approaches work, as fun...)
In order to become a franchisee potential owners generally need access to hundreds of thousands of dollars in start-up capital.
Other than an SBA loan it is next to impossible for a potential franchisee to obtain financing.
So most of these franchise owners are already successful. They have money and a well run franchise spins off enough cash to finance a second or third location.
The tax treatment for small sub-chapter S corporations is highly advantageous. They make a lot of money except on paper where for tax purposes they are losing money.
My point is the owners of these businesses can well afford to pay competitive wages and benefits.
If they need to raise their prices a small amount to maintain their profit margins it likely won't make a dent in their gross sales. Who shops around for the lowest price on a Subway sandwich.
I don't blame the teenagers for having the knowledge and courage to refuse to be exploited to make some unit owner richer.
78
YES ! This is one thing I love with the coming generation. They are NOT impressed by bosses.
About time, too !
14
Just once, I would like anyone to show me a small business that makes lots of money but also claims a loss on their tax return for that same business. I've never seen it - heard it claimed but have never seen it.
6
I have a job where I am required to travel to people's homes. One couple, operators of multiple sandwich shop franchises, lived in an enormous and lavish home on a lake. I'll bet their workers aren't paid much. I'm sure other chains are no better, but I haven't gone to that one since.
6
When people do not want low-skilled jobs, everyone else spends more time doing these tasks. We all wait in line longer or travel further to get lunch, and get stuck at a store waiting for customer service.
Since these are, approximately, the lowest paying jobs, the wasted time of the customers is, on average, far more valuable. We are paying doctors, lawyers, police and working moms to facilitate sandwich construction through their patience or travel. This sounds democratic, but it is not - it is just expensive.
Automation may force the equilibrium back to a better overall outcome where more people are willing to take these jobs. More immigration, however, may be a more reliable and quicker fix.
8
I worked restaurant jobs for over ten years, starting when I was 14. Overall excellent experiences, made friends, made money, learned the art of people pleasing. I jumped back into restaurant work a few years ago after surprise expenses. The quality in terms of treatment in my experience deteriorated tremendously over that time period. 12 hour shifts with no break, going hypoglycemic taking care of at least 8 tables at a time. Then I “tip out” half the staff: ie pay their wage. After six weeks new workers were turning to me as if I was a seasoned employee, that’s how high the turnover was. I left as soon as I could, indignant at the work deplorable conditions. The turnover issue is about pushing people to the breaking point, but expecting there will always be more labor to replace it. We all deserve better this late into civilization.
239
This is a good thing. Maybe teenagers shouldn't be working at fast-food places in the first place, but instead concentrate on doing well in school and working for better future opportunities.
I mean its not the end of the world if we have pay a couple of bucks extra.
36
At you kidding? A shortage of work ethic is a big problem for the US.
I don't understand these comments about $9 and $10 an hour not being worth it for teenagers! When I worked at McDonald's, which my parents made me do when I wasn't in a sport, I made $4.25 an hour. This was enough for gas and insurance for my car for the year and money for clothes, food, and things like movie tickets. I have to believe $9 an hour can still provide money for those things! If a teen gets 20 hours a week, that's at least $600 a month. Do teens really need more spending money than that? And I'm not talking about teens who have to provide for the family because of a financial disaster in the family. I'm talking about the typical teenager who wants to earn some extra spending cash. Those who think it's not worth it for teens to get out of bed for $10 are crazy. It's fast food, not rocket science, and they don't have the financial obligations parents have.
11
Do you realize everything is much more expensive now? No one can afford to work for $4.25/hour in this day and age. Name a state where that's feasible.
13
The fact that teens fewer teens are applying for these jobs at those wages means that yes, it is not worth it for them.
22
Annual tuition for Yale in 1970: $2,550
Minimum wage per hour in 1970: $1.45
Daily hours to pay tuition: 4.8
Annual tuition for Yale in 2014: $45,800
Minimum wage per hour in 2014: $7.25
Daily hours to pay tuition: 17
So unless you think your kids should be working SEVENTEEN HOURS A DAY, then no, it's not worth it to get a job. Their time is better spent doing activities that make them look more attractive to colleges.
97
Both of my daughters worked at sub-minimum wage jobs - the local public library - in high school in the early 2000's. It was a given that when they turned 16 they would want some spending money and independence. They both played sports and had other after-school activities they worked around. Family expectations play a role.
5
I would add that teenagers are not fungible. Some can do the job. Some can't. And some take the job and do it very badly. I was at a busy McDonald's across from a train station at breakfast time. The young woman serving me took an awful long time. She kept answering her phone and forgetting my order. And from her conversation, it was clear this wasn't a family emergency.
19
First of course managers should actually do work when the store is busy, and next automation is the answer.
5
Why? Maybe the owner would prefer his manager to manage, and it's a better business choice to automate.
1
Yes, where are those teenagers, those labor pool of awkward rascals we used to be able to get away with paying very little to thanks to Mom and Pops back home doing the heavy lifting.
Snark aside, every teenager I know who would have the initiative (which might be rarer these days due to the entertainment that can be had on one's computer/phone) to apply and keep a summer job would rather volunteer somewhere to burnish their college resumes.
I don't know what weight an admissions counselor would give to a summer job versus something like helping to prepare food for the homeless but the latter has tended to be (so I'm told) more fun since more often than not you encounter other high achievers there.
A summer job can be eye-opening in its own way. I recall an ex-felon fry cook showing me scars from getting shanked repeatedly in a prison altercation. But for today's kids college is the goal and memorable experiences are the goals not just the spending money for new clothes or a cool car.
28
I taught at a University for 30 years.
Build a resume? Who would I rather have in my classes: students who joined yet one more club in high school or students who worked all summer at summer jobs, and saved for college?
I retired 11 years ago. I got to teach those with summer jobs. It was a privilege that I will carry with me for the rest of my life.
28
If you can't afford to pay a living wage then you shouldn't have employees.
65
Around here minimum wage is a living wage.
What's a living wage?
Should every unskilled or low-skilled worker be able to support a separate dwelling, transportation, utilities, food, telecom & gadgets, health care, education, retirement savings, clothing and sundries, entertainment & leisure, etc. for himself? and for dependents? how utterly absurd.
Food: Beans and rice or filet and asparagus? Jeans: Walmart or Levis? Transport: own car or bus? Car: 2000 Ford Escort or 2017 Honda? Who gets to decide the standard of living you allude to with the sanctimonious phrase "living wage."
4
So it can fund the basics but you know that.Don't you realize with the avg min wage worker is 29 yrs old. You the tax payer make up the difference.
3
When the next recession takes place, as they customarily occur , employers will be back in charge. Wages and benefit cost are corporations nightmare. Now that unions have been destroyed there is no guarantee how much you'll get paid to dig a ditch or put a tire lug on a car. I am fortunate I stay in Luxury Hotels in my frequent travels. I always take notice of the ladies who make up the rooms, usually immigrants simply glad to have a job.
8
My older teen son wants a job. He's 17 and routinely gets turned down because he's in high school and has a restricted schedule. The non-fast food jobs he might be interested to apply for tend to be restricted to 18-year-olds and up, and young applicants have to compete with retired boomers and under-educated older applicants. I refuse to allow him to work in fast food, as the job can be dangerous, training is often lousy, pay is pathetic, and scheduling is difficult.
He did try working at a sub shop, but the manager insisted on scheduling my son to be at work 30 minutes after he got out of school each day and kept him until closing. I was exhausted by trying to meet the sub shop's schedule requirement, which entailed me being the first in the pick up line at school, driving 20 minutes across town in school zone traffic, and then staying up until after 11:PM so I could pick up my son after work. The gas alone wasn't worth the $9 hourly wage he received, and I let him quit the job after a month.
That gig wasn't worth the effort for either of us.
154
Welcome to right-wing America, the "civilized" country with no mass-transportation system.
27
Not to mention the verbal abuse I saw teenagers put through by spiteful managers in fast food. To be clear: there are good, decent people managing restaurants. But not all of them. I couldn’t believe what I saw some get away with.
13
Teens don't want to work today because it interferes with their engagement with social media, which is somehow going to provide them with a a life plan and real world experience.
8
Not in my experience. These jobs often don't pay enough to be worth the hassle/cost of gas/parents' time and energy if they have to drive. I'd rather have my nieces and nephews do other kinds of work (babysitting, odd jobs, buying and selling online, etc.) that is less dangerous or concentrate on their school work. It's not possible to work your way through college via a retail job and when you're in high school age is a huge restriction in terms of hours.
44
I wish more commenters recognized this hurdle. Kids want to work, but it needs to be reasonable. What ever happened to 10 hours a week as a part time job?
14
The one solution the fast-food owners haven't tried is paying workers a living wage with normal adult benefits.
67
I think there are two juxtaposing points of view in this article. The first being a high school kid NEEDING a job for financial reasons vs. WANTING a job to for valuable life skills which they could not find elsewhere. Unfortunately these days, these two notions tend to collide rather than enhance one another.
The major negative factor in any retail job is the unreliable scheduling of hours as well as the low pay with no real benefits. Whether the job is working at a food chain, coffee shop, book store, or anything in between, one’s hours are never truly set, primarily because part time workers, especially high school kids, are at the bottom of the food chain when it comes to consideration. They are often viewed as an expendable necessity (which sounds like an oxymoron).
A major positive factor in obtaining one of these jobs is learning how to accept the best and worst a boss and/or customer hands out as well as making one appreciate the value of a solid education. If the negative aspects of these “insignificant” less than career path positions could be funneled into lessens to be learned and expounded on with age and maturity, the time spent in those positions could have valuable and positive consequences.
Granted the pay stinks in a lot of these jobs, and until that pay increases, the work force will be sparse. However, valuable lessons can also be obtained in these work environments and possibly pay higher dividends down the road in one’s life.
15
I assure you it costs more than $2,000 to replace a trained hourly restaurant worker.
8
No one should be surprised by this.
Fast food restaurants pay pitifully poor wages, offer no benefits, and often make employees effectively be "on call" to come to work.
They are dead-ends, as far as career options go - appealing mostly to under-educated individuals - and they are going to be adopting whole-heartedly as much automation as they can, which will eliminate any real future for people in the industry even if there were one.
This industry helps keep millions of people in poverty. Pay a living wage and give employees health care and tuition benefits and then I'll have some sympathy for their plight.
96
In Denmark, most fast food workers are unionized and paid a living wage with benefits. The cost of fast food isn't substantially higher, but corporate profits are lower. Americans seem to operate on the myth that corporations cannot thrive without cheap labor. That's part of the reason for the obscene imbalance in wealth and the continuing transfer of wealth to the wealthy rather than to the laborers who actually produce the wealth through work.
626
Another myth is that automation is going to eliminate these types of jobs. Tesla has discovered that many of the tasks in building a car is better performed by humans even though their vehicles have common parts and a limited number of optional features. In areas such as sandwich making, where there are literally dozens of toppings and choices of meat and bread, automation is not going to be able to respond to a customer's wishes more effeciently than a human worker.
13
You are absolutely wrong - when people 'quote' a wage in a country - they assume that things cost a similar amount as they do in the USA. This is false - you need to look at Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) - ie. what you can actually buy with that minimum wage.
Funny thing happens when you pay a "living wage" - your PPP goes down. This happens all across Europe in such a fashion that their 'living' wage is actually equivalent to our minimum wage.
See the OECD analysis: https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=RMW
But - then again - I'm not an economist - I just play one on TV
3
Me. James: you have a valid and substantial point; manybusiness owner are just not willing to compromise on their tax home profitability
7
And yet the inflation rate is still around 2%! How on earth is it that the price of just about everything is going up and job markets have tightened to breaking, yet we still have low inflation. Something is just not adding up. Can we trust the new Fed?
18
In short, it's the long period of low cost of borrowing we've enjoyed, especially in the housing market.
5
David, it's designed so that most have debt. Debt is a huge money maker. Can you imagine the interest rates? Designed to keep the poor, poor, and the rich richer.
4
I know that many teenagers are now focused, along with their parents, on building their college resume, but there is a lot to be said for having a job when you are a teenager.
I'm close to retirement age now, but I look back at my jobs in a supermarket and small store while in high school and college as having taught me important life skills. Getting yourself to work on time, dealing with managers, some good and some bad, customers, etc. The skills you will learn will apply to any adult occupation; especially during your early years of employment.
31
One important 'life skill' the current generation of teenagers is not learning is how to accept and tolerate workplace exploitation! Good for them.
9
I learned absolutely nothing useful from my stints as a dishwasher, a fast food worker, and a fry cook as a teenager. Perhaps the "skills" you learned were things I knew already.
4
Mr. Kaplow, repeat after me: there are many jobs Americans do not want to do, at the wages employers want to pay. The first part of the sentence is what many pundits and immigration advocates say. The second part corrects the idea. To paraphrase an old movie line, if you pay them they will come. But also understad this Mr. Kaplow, while immigrats may be willing to work cheap. Their children won't.
61
Or more correctly there are some jobs Americans don't want to do because the consequences of not doing them are basically nothing.
5
what's your solution, lock up people who won't take minimum=wage fast-food jobs with no benefits and inconsistent scheduling? I think jfc had it right.
3
Exactly. No, Americans won't live 10 to a 2 bedroom apartment to take a poor paying dead end job. No desperate immigrants available to exploit? Witness how jobs and wages improve.
2
Well maybe Trump can convince the Coal Miners that these are the jobs he got for them.
177
Let me ask. Are they giving their workers a predictable weekly schedule like I used to get when I was working? Or employees on a continual "on call" basis, only knowing when they will work maybe the morning before? When my son was working, a retail store insisted he work that kind of schedule. He quit and found better work elsewhere.
162
Having employees work on an "on call" basis transfers away the everyday business risk of it being a slow day away from the employer to the employee. A retail store that's part of a 100+ unit chain is far better able to handle that risk than teenagers working part time. When its raining in Boston, it may be sunny in NYC and vice-versa.
13
I worry about what it means for how we educate our children and what education now means. I worked in fast food when I was in high school. It was an incredibly valuable experience and I learned a lot about myself and how to be an employee. I was promoted to shift manager and learned even more from my first management experience. I went to a prestigious private school, a top ranked college, and now have a successful career in a demanding field. I credit the experience with helping to develop a lot of the qualities that have helped me become successful like hard work, confidence, and humility. I hope my children are able to have a similar experience but worry with what college admissions has become and all the teaching to the test, that we don't allow time anymore for a robust education about things that one can't learn from a book.
44
I had a job at a local sandwich shop starting when I was fourteen. Often I walked there after school, worked the dinner shift then returned to school for play practice. They were family owned and worked with the three high schoolers so school activities were not impacted. Granted it was convenient that the three of us had different interests and were rarely busy with activities at the same time, but they cared about their employees.
For my son to have a job, my husband or I would have to get him there. The lack of a true schedule at retail and fast foods stores makes it not worth the aggravation. Instead my son will make some money as a referee, volunteer at the local library and earn things he wants by babysitting his siblings.
15
"Humility" is definitely one of the things that the 1% enforces on their servants. Congratulations on your success!
1
In my area the fast food positions are held mostly by adults because there are not better jobs to be had. I have not been waited on in a fast food restaurant by anyone under 24 in years, the exception being the local soft-serve joint.
23
Fast food places refuse to pay living wages, medical insurance and refuse to have stable scheduling and hours. Why would anyone want to work for them?
162
The worst is the lack of stable scheduling that does not permit an employee to plan his or her week. If you want an employee to be committed to you, you have to be committed to them. It's that simple.
21
Not sure why teens need all of those things - they need some money for smartphones and clothes.
You mean its not all part of making america great again and building character?
4
Fast-food work appears to be a dangerous place for many employees, especially females in low-wage jobs, as noted in recent articles about pervasive sexual abuse and harassment at work, often with managers and co-workers the perpetrators.
38
Yes, my daughter went through this with her very first job out of high school. It was really discouraging and I had to push her to leave because I knew it would only get worse. They count on naive kids not knowing enough to push back.
22
So minimum wage (or below) hourly rates, work schedules by algorithm that change from day-to-day, week-to-week, no health benefits, no vacation, no prospect of full-time employment with decent working conditions, none of those things appeal to American youth anymore. Geez...kids today.
289
It's the cost of living - everything is way over the top expensive, so the old models no longer work. Want good workers to show up on time on a regular basis? PAY THEM! A wage of $10 per hour isn't even worth getting out of bed.
47
The minimum wage is absurdly low. The fight for 15 doesn't set the bar high enough. Factor in the soul-crushing nature of fast food jobs and it's not hard to see why these jobs are hard to fill and why the turnover is so high.
At the same time, given other rising costs and *super-low prices*, owners of these franchises often are just not able to pay a living wage. The root cause here is the race to the bottom--the desire to make everything CHEAP. As cheap as possible, and then cheaper still. This phenomenon is found throughout our economy, not only in the fast food sector. We find the same mentality in the rise of Walmart (resulting in the decimation of locally-owned business and the communities where Walmart has taken hold). Most significantly, CHEAP dominates our entire agricultural/food production sector. At the supermarket, I am astounded to find I can purchase chicken or pork for less than a dollar a pound--while a head of cauliflower costs 3 bucks. Of course, that meat is tainted with hormones and antibiotic residues, and isn't necessarily the best tasting...but it's CHEAP.
23
Here minimum wage for full time is a living wage, these are children who should have parents paying their normal expenses and benefits. This is pocket money and experience, not a career.
3
Vulcanax, as someone who actually managed a fast food place for a while, there is no way I could have staffed a store with the teenagers or college students you say should be filling these jobs. We would have been open from 4pm-10pm, and we were a coffee shop! Do you never go out to grab lunch when these teenagers you speak of are in school? I’m so baffled when people repeat this line.
2
It's not just the low wages it's the horrible ever-changing hours. My son tried to work at a Dunkin' Donuts while he was in high school. He never found out what he was supposed to work during the week until the Sunday of that week. The same thing happened at Walmart. They all have software that manages employee hours to maximize profit. His school work came first and the job came second as it should be. I worked at a doughnut shop summers and weekends all through college and could pay for my in-state tuition that way. Try that nowadays!
103
I'm only in my 20s, so I'm still sort of close to my teenage years. I remember when I was that age, the biggest obstacle to getting a job was simply not having enough time to do it. I got out of school at 2:15, but if I had after school activities then it was 3 or 4. If I was doing athletics, it was closer to 5 or 6. Then I had homework, which could take several hours depending on how much I had. This kind of schedule was more or less the same when I went on to college.
I always hear tales of baby boomers working part time as grocers and being able to pay for literally everything: school, rent, meals, a car, etc. I understand why that could work back then. Everything wasn't crazy expensive, and wages were reasonable. What I don't get is, how on earth did they find the time to do it? Did they not have as much homework and activities? There's just not enough time these days.
51
My husband is a baby boomer and so are most of my siblings. Back then college was a lot more affordable. They had homework and maybe an after school sport or an activity like the school newspaper but nothing like the myriad of activities so many kids have now and they weren't spending time on computers or phones.
31
I didn't work during the school year--no way I could've managed that, with 5 college prep courses per semester and a 30 minute commute each way. Instead I worked full time or more in the summer, two or three jobs, saving pretty much everything I made to pay for my living expenses at college. I didn't play sports; I had a falling-apart used car; I didn't go to concerts or have nice clothes or take vacations or ski or do anything that would cost me money. It was doable. My friends were in similar positions. We were pretty cheerful about the whole thing.
14
So after 15 years, an employee is making $15 an hour. Really? Why wouldn't longevity be rewarded with higher pay?
23
Maureen: 15 years ago, the minimum wage was $5.15 an hour....it did not go up to the present $7.25 until 2007 (!!!) under GW Bush. It did not rise one cent under Obama. So this man started at $5.15 and over 15 years, he tripled his wages -- not that bad. $15 an hour is $31,400 a year -- a middle class wage in the Midwest.
6
Because the price people are willing to pay for burgers and sandwiches does not allow to pay more. Do you think most fast food shop owners are driving back to their mansion in a Rolls Royce? Half of them make $50,000 a year or less.
2
He lives in Staten Island. He probably pays $15 to commute to work every day. :-(
2
One of the most frequently heard arguments against raising the minimum wage is that the jobs in that catagory are supposed to be "starter jobs for teenagers" but the facts presented in this story seem to belie that. Most people I've encountered working in the fast food industry across the country are long past high school age and many are working to support families, impossible to do on minimum wage. Retirees looking for supplemental income may find such work physically difficult. Add that to the fact that no fast food place could survive if it only operated during the hours high school kids are available to work and you have a clear picture of why staffing problems exist.
66
High school kids in my area get out of school at 1PM, and of course are off all summer and a big chunk of winter too. All I can tell you is that growing up...every McDonalds and Burger King was staffed 90% by teenagers. Today, the workers all seem to be adults over 30.
6
This is the economy "working" through the price signals it sends. When the market value of a worker's time falls, the worker's wage tends to fall--as a society we have become accustomed to this harsh reality.
We are less accustomed to the flip side... When an industry is unable to pay the market value of its workers' wages, the industry's return falls. Some leave the industry, which helps lift industry wages a bit, which brings in some additional workers.
Personally, I think that we would all be better off with less fast food, and slightly higher wages. While acknowledging the challenges facing the hard working managers of fast food restaurants, in general this is a social win brought about by competitive markets.
30
As competition to get into college has gotten stiffer and stiffer, high school students have been spending their time studying, volunteering, participating in numerous activities and “leadership” roles to beef up their college applications. It is too bad—my daughter learned more working for Pottery Barn Warehouse than any after school activity.
54
True -- our very academic daughter worked her last two high school years at a bagel shop. She met a variety of different people, learned invaluable lessons about the general public, and was quickly promoted to a managerial position. Years later it's still one of the best jobs she ever had.
22
Homework, sports, extra curricular (especially to beef up your college applications!) -- but also, most of the kids I know simply do not do any work. They get generous allowances and lots of money for Xmas and birthdays. They will say openly they don't want or need to work. My grandkids are 14 and 16, and the older kid has driver's license and STILL they have zero interest in any work. They won't cut the grass or do any chores around the house either -- not even for money. You cannot tempt them with money, they have hundreds of dollars just lying around (birthday money, gift cards, etc.).
9
It's all about the crappy wages they offer. Yesterday I was offered a contract job as a aircraft mechanic, max pay $29/hour. I told them where to shove their job. By the way, the job only required one year experience, think of that next time you board a airliner, the maintenance was done by the lowest bidder.
163
paulie: I have no inkling what to compare that to, but $29 an hour would be roughly $63,000 a year. What do you consider a fair wage for your work? That is quite a bit higher than the average US wage as it is.
16
I've worked as a contract employee. The hourly wage is all one gets. There is no vacation, sick leave, personal days off, medical insurance, dental insurance, retirement, employer contributions to a 401K, education benefits, no benefits whatsoever. The contract worker may also have to pay social security and state and federal employee taxes. To avoid the appearance that this is a regular job, and thus benefits would have to be given, lengths of work with one employer is usually 1 1/2 years, with a year break. So, if I want to keep earning, I have to look for a new job every year or so.
As a good estimate of what the hourly wage of a contract job should be, take the average yearly wage, divide by 1000, and that's the hourly wage. A regular job paying $29,000 per year would pay $29 per hour if a contract job.
Average wage of an aircraft mechanic (Googled it) is $23 per hour, or about $46,000 per year (40 hours per week times 50 weeks or 2000 hours per year). So a contract aircraft mechanic should be getting $46 dollars per hour, not $29 dollars per hour. So the offer was roughly half of what a regular job with that skill pays.
I did get ridiculous offers from job shops at half the going rate. Employers will throw that low rate out there and see if anyone bites. Glad this person didn't.
46
Paulie: $29's about what I make at a skilled administrative assistant position that requires additional licenses which take about a year study and associated stressful test, and carries a lot of responsibility. I also live in one of the most expensive cities in the US and have a nice comfortable life at that wage. I'm not rich, but I'm not hurting either. I have enough in the bank for a few months, a small condo I got for a great deal, and an older but well kept and low miles car. And thats in a very expensive place. In many places in the US, $29 an hour is enough to own an actual house, drive a new car, and perhaps to support a spouse and child on one income. So I'm really curious what you think a fair wage for an airplane mechanic is, in what area of the country?
5
Robots!
6
Employers will do anything to recruit employees....'cept pay them. What does the minimum wage say to you? We'd pay you less, but it'd be illegal. And while many employers now pay higher than the minimum wage, that has been so stagnant for so long that its a poor benchmark.
This is how you know you're paying someone enough. They are happy to come to work, you have a choice of the best applicants and they have a life pretty similar to your own.
187
So, who exactly is the victim here: the employee not making a living wage, the franchisee suckered into and unworkable business model, or the customer who consumes the life threatening globs of fat and chemicals being distributed?
142
This is a problem in construction, too.
I have zero sympathy for fast food companies. Not only do they offer paltry wages without benefits, their food comes from the torture of farm animals.
Let the Subways and Carls Juniors die out. Then maybe we can have a real discussion about the poor being able to afford HEALTHFUL and cheap
food to cook.
57
We can have this discussion right now - and the answer is going to be that people want to eat what they want, not what public health officials tell them to eat.
10
The problem with the public eating "what they want" to eat is that they end up getting sick with diabetes, cancer and other diseases.
The cost for caring for these diseases is passed on to taxpayers If they are on Medicaid or public assiatance. Ultimately taxpayers end up picking up the tab, while the fast food giants laugh their way to the bank.
This is an example of companies Privatizing profits while socializing the expenses. I don't want to pay medical expenses for people who don't take care of themselves and get sick.
These fast food companies should be made to pay for the illnesses
they cause. They will certainly start servig healthier foods then!
16
In some modern European countries, people know what healthy food looks like and it ain’t Subway and Carl’s Junior. It isn’t the European public health authority that forces people to eat healthier.
8
It is just like the farmers who can't find workers or businesses on Cape Cod who can't find workers. Pay people better and they will work for you. It's capitalism! Also, provide actual schedules every week so that they can plan the rest of their week too. It is annoying to read these articles when the answer is simple: pay people more and either make a little less profit or raise your prices. Subway sandwiches are pretty cheap!
134
Citizens won't work in agriculture. It's very hard work. Farmers have tried $15/hour and Americans work for one day and don't come back. Try picking crops in a field in the hot sun in South Texas or California and see what it's like, or an indoor job at a slaughterhouse.
6
Citizens will line up to work in ag. if they had access to healthcare. I like working ag. I've worked the prune harvest East of Orland, the tomato harvest up and down California hauling bulk produce. Mostly I've worked with thoroughbreds at racetracks coast to coast. I can think of one employer who offered health insurance and last time I checked he was not hiring. If people who import help were required to offer health insurance to everyone, the equation would change.
29
But those higher labor costs have to be paid by someone and these days farmers all need to sell to distributors. If you try to charger a higher crop price than your neighbor, no distributor will buy it. Crops, like oil, are often dictated by world markets (e.g., corn). Lastly, consumers almost always go for the cheapest product they can find. So one farmer out of 100 pays their employees a better wage, it will be nearly impossible for that one farmer to find a buyer for his product. So the race to the bottom continues. The only way to improve wages is via unionization or legislation to raise the entire playing field.
11
Let's see. We advertise fast food jobs with a matching hourly pay rate. Not enough qualified people apply to keep the jobs filled. Huh. What could be wrong? I wonder if an MBA or PhD economist might have a possible solution or two for this perplexing problem.
27
Not just pay more money -- offer fixed, standard schedules -- at least 40 hours a week -- have group health insurance (even if the worker pays the premium themselves) -- two weeks paid vacation -- 1 week paid sick leave. Do that, and pay about $25,000 a year wages and you'll have plenty of applicants.
25
I can tell you what the solution looks like - it looks like my shop floor - automation and robots - maybe not what you were expecting.
A teenage might learn a lot more from a summer job than a summer internship.
18
My summer jobs working in the retail and service industries taught me that getting an education was a wayyyyy better option for long term happiness. Get a good education then work in jobs that are less physically demanding, pay well, have a set schedule, provide benefits, etc.
14
Good article; however, I don't think fast-food has to worry. I went to a local taco-joint recently and the person working the counter was 19. She had already graduated high school. These fast-food joints are the new "opportunity" for a very large percentage of Americans, regardless of age.
8
While I never worked in a fast food environment, my brother had a job at McDonalds when he was a teen. I heard his fast food "war" stories and watched as his very first job took an unbelievable toll on him. I can only imagine how difficult it is to work with the public today.
Salaries haven't kept up with inflation, this much we know. Many of the positions previously filled by American teens are now being filled by foreign workers, as most American teens feel this work is beneath them.
When you have American teens being spoiled to death by their parents, being given every advantage and technical tchotchke known to man, they aren't inclined to relinquish their perceived "privilege" for a job in the fast food industry.
Teens have been absent from the summer job landscape for decades, deciding instead to go to summer school, start their own business, or just enjoy their summer off from school. Who can blame them from not wanting to engage in the fast food rat race? This is our problem, not theirs.
7
You do realize that many teenagers are not spoiled and do not come from families where they are showered with "technical tchotchkes"?
21
Fast food in some places has a tradition of closers working off the clock. Then add in closing one night and opening the next, for not enough hours either day to cover the transportation. Who needs that abuse. A teen can net more in other places, or self-employ.
25
There was a time with Starbucks made the person who closed the store at night be there to open it in the morning. many, many years ago, I worked at a fast food place of 2 weeks. I quit when I discovered that the owner was only paying me for about 3/4 of the hours I worked. From listening to people working in the insindustry, nothing has changed.
23
One would think that this situation would result in rising wages, however there is a strong downward pressure due to automation. The last time I went to a McDonalds, there was a kiosk that took my order. Even further automation is happening in sushi restaurants, where a computer took my order and a conveyer belt delivered the dishes. Soon enough, self driving cars or drones will be delivering hot and ready to eat meals to our doors.
11
I've wondered why it is taking so long for fast food restaurants to dispense with live order takers. Kiosks make so much more sense from an economic and even a practical point of view (can offer many languages for instance). A
Pity about that -20% of teenagers in the workforce since 2000. They're in the sights of colleges and lenders intent on leaving them with huge debts, and possibly a piece of paper that will qualify for them for the same jobs they're not taking in their teens.
8
American teenagers, are on the whole, a lazy lot. They prefer to be texting or engaging in other forms of useless social media interaction rather than working and earning money. When I was a teenager, not many fast food franchises existed. So we worked at any job we could find. That included off shift factory work, mowing lawns, working retail jobs, etc. Nobody I knew was not working part time, or looking for a job. The current lot of teenagers prefers to live off mom and dad, and plans to do so as long as the gravy train allows them to ride.
21
Paul, I disagree. The teens I know are smart and motivated people. I even know teens in White Plains! So I'm thinking it's you yourself that might have a bad attitude towards teenagers. I'm not jumping on that bandwagon. I'm enjoying the teens I know - they work hard, have new ideas, and an irreverent attitude that I find refreshing. Today's teens are paying attention and are a boon to our future.
20
"back when I was a kid . . . but kids these days . . ."
Come on, Paul, it is not as simple as that and you know it. Sure there are teenagers living off mom & dad in Westchester County, but there are lots of struggling families across this country and those teens are not riding on any gravy train.
41
not ALL American teenagers.
8
Teenagers don't work anymore. My nieces and nephews have never had a job. I have tried in vain to find someone to work for me, $15 an hour, cash. No one. No one wants to work anymore. My friend's family is closing their business for this very reason.
21
People are happy to work if the pay is good. $15 an hour won't even buy a babysitter these days.
11
Low wages and year round education pretty much sums it up. The teenagers in our neighborhood are either working jobs that pay more or attending computer camps, science camps, etc. etc.
17
What about all the men whose jobs were being replaced by automation? Surely that’s a fresh supply of labor?
11
Yes! All these men who are being put out of work will rejoice at the opportunity to earn minimum wage!
12
Perhaps the focus is on teenagers because restaurants find them cheaper. Surprisingly they are not that cheap, at least not cheap enough for what the industry expects. The race toward the bottom slows down a little, and lazy teenagers are to blame this time.
I'm deeply sympathetic to the story of Jeffrey Kaplow and thousands like him who are hard working and well meaning.
The problem is that dread concept: the "Business Model".
I remember a story in the Times of another man who sold his third generation Deli business to buy a Subway franchise. He liked it, he said, because he didn't have to make any decisions. The 700 page manual included instructions on how thick to cut the onions.
That's the difference. People who don't want to make decisions used to be called employees. Today's 'business models' sell questionable businesses to those passive minds, and run the businesses by boards of directors and algorithms. And all of that so that we can have flavorless sandwiches with poor nutritional value that cost a few cents less than real food.
24
I'm not a big consumer of fast food, but I can tell you that Subway is just a sandwich shop -- nothing more or less -- nothing nefarious or strange. It's cold cuts, cheese and bread. I've eaten them on occasions, and they taste pretty ordinary to me. I do not know what "real food" sandwiches you think you can buy today for "pennies more" than Subway, which averages about $6 for a 10" sandwich. Fancy sandwich shops around me (Midwest) charge $12-$14 for a sandwich -- better bread, yes -- but twice as expensive.
7
You may wish to check the ingredients list of the next Subway sandwich you order. Sugar in the bread and many of the meats, lots of chemical preservatives, etc. As many nutritionists have noted, Subway is not healthy! You might as well eat at McDonalds.
6
Some sort of sugar is in most breads, particularly the more homemade because it makes spurs yeast,
1
The fast food business model is built on selling food quickly prepared at relatively low prices. This model can only work with cheap labor.
Staffing problems are what is going to force fast food restaurants to turn to robots and more automation.
The more $$ human workers demand, the more reason there will be to turn to machine driven solutions.
7
I loved my first summer job working at an ice cream place. But even when I was paid the highest minimum wage in the country it didn’t make much financial sense. The money I saved after an entire summer barely covered the cost of textbooks in college. Given the low pay and sporadic work schedule, college-bound teenagers are better off studying for AP courses or doing extracurriculars that please admissions officers.
100
Why have the number of restaurants gone up 40% in the past 15 years? Here in the UK the restaurant chains are shrinking. This is because people are trying to eat healthier and save money.
19
Different subject matter than teens working, but very important.
Despite all the warnings, we continue to make these obesity creating, heart injuring meals so much of our daily diet . Good comment Mary.
9
Mary: I sincerely doubt that, and I'd see some proof that the British are eating out LESS and restaurants closing down....because the British are so darned HEALTHY.
More likely, they are broke and unable to afford to eat out, and the restaurants cannot make a profit with all the British high taxes and regulations.
4
You are making a helluva lot of assumptions here. I've lived in the UK, and while they definitely have a problem with booze and cigarettes (both on the decline fortunately), the average Brit is far skinnier than an American and they tend not to eat between meals or eat as many processed foods. Living in London I was much healthier (ate better and walked a lot more) than living in the DC area. I miss the European lifestyle.
5
Almost 60 years ago,as a live-at-home, commuting, full-time engineering student, I was a dedicated, well-motivated, and highly competent part-time supermarket employee. My hourly pay, approximately $1.50/ hour, was enough to pay for supporting my car, personal expenses, and entertainment. At the time, a new Volkswagen cost $1,600, the typical starting salary for newly graduated engineers was $5,000, and a house in a middle class NJ suburb cost $25,000. My $1.50/hour part-time supermarket pay was worth at least $25.00/hour in current purchasing power.
Pay part-time employees $25.00/hour and there will be no difficulty hiring and keeping dependable workers. Prices will have to rise, but the current situation is not sustainable.
453
Actually, it is sustainable. There is no shortage of human beings on the planet and unfortunately the world population is on track to reach 13 billion by the end of this century. Wages are not going to rise in the face of that labor glut.
10
High school and college-age kids are only available certain times during the school year, and often need to modify availability because of sports and educational demands. Moreover, parents often need to be available to provide transportation. This makes scheduling difficult and increases absences.Unlike generations past, during the summer there is an increased demand for teens to be doing something "meaningful", career-oriented or interning to increase chances of college acceptance and post college employment. Unless they are looking to go into fast food, this leaves out this avenue for employment. And yes, customers are often rude- further increasing the lack of job candidates.
40
Note to employers both large and small: Employees are your most valuable resource. More valuable than equipment, more valuable the software, they are on a par with your customers. The era of unlimited labor availability is coming to an end. Invest in your people, because your employees now have a choice of employers, so why should they choose your company? Lastly, automation will not save you, ask Elon Musk how that worked out for him.
54
As a parent of two teenagers of legal working age, their employment decisions are related mostly to transportation. We live in center of a small city, and they rely on public transportation to get around. However, the public transportation exists mostly in center city area. Fast food restaurants are located in suburban areas. To get to the fast food areas in suburbs would require an hour to get 4 miles on two buses, and the bus only runs until 8 PM. Buying a car costs more than $8000 per year, according to AAA. https://newsroom.aaa.com/auto/your-driving-costs/
I'm not going to buy my teenager a car for $8000/year so they can get to their $12/hour fast food jobs in the suburbs. I would then be subsidizing the fast food restaurant to employ my kids. Instead, my kids work at the YMCA, located in city center where they can walk or bus to work after school. The bus takes about 10 minutes. They get paid about $1.50/hour less than McDonalds in suburbs, but it avoids the $8000/year expense of owning another car. The Y is staffed with many college and high school kids to supplement the Y full time staff at busy times. Buying a car costing $8000/year to get to a job that pays $12/hour is a losing economic proposition for lots of folks, even though many people do it.
297
Four miles? That’s a 20-minute ride on a bicycle.
Lest you laugh, fifty years ago, I did it to make $2 a day. That’s how I know how long four miles takes.
9
I looked up the area and there is a major highway separating the city center from the suburbs and i don't know about you but my parents barely felt comfortable letting me ride a bicycle along major roads, much less crossing a highway. As someone who lives in a place that's heavily car-dependent with unfriendly bike and public transit areas. 4 miles is less about the physical capability of teenagers than the safety of the teenagers. Would you want your teenager riding a bike home at 9-10 at night across major hwy's and busy, bike unfriendly roads?
40
@Steve L.
Why on earth would you have worked for $2 a day "fifty years ago"? The federal minimum wage in 1968 was $1.60 per hour. Adjusted for inflation, you made at least $11.47 per hour in 2018 dollars. Riding a bike can be a healthy and cheap transportation alternative. However, depending on traffic in your city, it can also be dangerous and/or take quite a bit longer than 20 minutes.
17
I have no sympathy for fast food places that expect people to work for low pay at inconsistent hours. OF COURSE there will be difficulty recruiting millennials to work under those circumstances. They can earn 10x as much off of a YouTube channel or playing video games professionally while setting their own schedules.
138
While I agree with what you're saying, millenials aren't teenagers anymore.
10
Nowhere in here is mentioned the foundational reason why fast food shops are having trouble finding employees that will stick around, a reason that every one of us who ever worked in fast food can tell you: the job sucks and the pay sucks. Inconsistent schedules; over-entitled customers; boring, repetitive and sometimes dirty and unpleasant tasks; and all with no hope of ever making a living wage, not even in management (which at many chains sucks even more than hourly work). There are many easier, less unpleasant, more educational ways of making $10 per hour. This is true even for teenagers, many of whom are savvy enough to do the analysis and derive the ROI on the time spent at these jobs - what experience does this offer, will it have any future application beyond fast food (spoiler alert - no), how much are the wages worth (for example, what percentage of my college costs will this cover in return for the time I will not be able to devote to academics because I'm working?).
397
Let's do the math for fast food worker pay.
Before deductions for FICA and taxes:
$10 x 20 (part time) hours = $200/week, or $800/month. The employee takes home less. It can cover a car payment, but not the person's rent/utilities portion in an apartment with roommates.
Full time amounts to $1600/month, but probably less if it is 37.5 hours instead of 40, and before taxes, too. Whether one calculates using 52 weeks or 12 months, the results are similar.
Annually, the full time employee makes less than $20,000.
Ponder that.
Any questions?
75
I agree on the inconsistent schedules. I worked at McDonald's in the late 90's in high school. My schedule varied week to week. I ended up quitting when they scheduled me to close during the school year. They used me to prevent having to pay overtime to their full time staff. Now no one gets regular hours, so their workers can't have 2 jobs. The next summer, I got a job in a factory that paid almost 50% more, and had a set schedule, with overtime optional.
80
I agree that the #1 problem is:
Part-Time Wages / Full-Time Availability
31
If wages are finally rising during this labor shortage, good. That is the way the free market is supposed to operate. And finally--FINALLY- immigrant labor is being acknowledged, out loud, as a major way employers have avoided raising wages.
Democrats have been complicit for years in DENYING that immigrants take jobs needed by American citizens, and that immigrant labor results in depressed wages. The Democratic Party has supported unfettered immigration over the survival of American workers. Still, to this day, DACA is on the top of the priority list for Democrats in Congress. What about Americans who are struggling to pay the bills and send their kids to college? We're expendable--invisible.
I despise Donald Trump but I am giving him grudging respect for helping to get this issue up on top of the table. As a Democrat, I am ashamed of my own party for selling out the American worker for the last 20 years.
70
Immigrants do the jobs that many people do not want. With countless available jobs in construction, the agriculture industry, the hospitality industry, and the restaurant business where are all of these people who claim their jobs have been taken by immigrants? Why aren’t they taking the jobs that the immigrants are no longer here to take? Don’t blame the Democrats alone. Both parties have failed to do the right thing for our country.
30
If DACA really "is on the top of the priority list for Democrats in Congress" then why are they doing nothing to achieve that goal. Rather than engage in the successful art of compromise and negotiation, they - not unlike the Republicans which they claim always do this - intentionally prefer to poke a thumb in the eye of Trump rather than actually solve the DACA issue.
2
This comment is misguided. This article isn't about how there are so many Americans clamoring to work at fast food restaurants, and losing out due to immigrant labor. It's about how there are not enough employees at all because employees choose a different environment with better pay and better standards, jobs that better help them send their children to college. It's about how the fast food restaurant mentality is failing in the face of start-ups, internships, and other business opportunities. The line about immigration was pointing out that owners/managers are concerned that they will lose even more of their workforce due to the uptick in aggressive regulation. If you blame the lack of teenager workers at Subways on DACA, you have a very strange understanding of American politics.
24
Boo hoo. Wages have stagnated for years and, because teenagers now have to kill themselves with academic achievement and volunteer work just to have a shot at getting into a good college they can barely afford, more fast food workers are adults. Pay them a living wage as full-time adult employees should expect. If you can't, your business isn't viable and should close, especially true when your business is one with more negative than positive effects anyway.
517
This!
3
Such low unemployment bringing about a shortage of fast food workers is probably the only down side of President Trump being president.
5
If your kid is going to school why have them slave all summer for a few thousand bucks which will not make a dent in college costs. They are better off long term taking classes or doing some other activity that would benefit them long term.
119
Perhaps teaching them some real world responsibility like having to adhere to a work schedule, earn a living, etc., will also serve as a plus for their future.
44
There is no reason kids can't work part-time and take classes. Some of the most successful academically-minded students I have seen do also work part-time.
10
Two brothers who were my yard helpers when they were in high school also were police cadets, worked at a hardware store and were in great demand for their lawn mowing skills and other chores. They graduated with excellent grades, both went to good state schools and graduated in four years on the dot -- working the whole time -- and both were sought after in their chosen fields. They are young professional men now and both still have small side businesses -- carpentry, mainly.
Some people hustle and some people don't.
19
Lots of retired people out there working at Kroger an Walmart. Is the employer paying for a full shift? 8 hours or only part-time? a full-week? How does said employee get to work in the wee hours?? (My local NYC MacDo ran at snail pace at 7 AM -- in Ohio everyone is go-going by then.)
Maybe I should apply at KFC?? Maybe old people would be happy with 4-hour shifts?
BTW how many of these places are simply understaffed so as to save $$? Only when we ask questions do we find answers.
25
Fast food is definitely had an impact on the health of Americans. The kids in the my youth all worked in hot stands and diners. Maybe were passed it.
1
As mentioned in your article there are a myriad of reasons why this is happening from demographics to other reasons.
One way to alleviate the pressure is through immigration but our ego maniac demagogue in chief Trump, is doing everything to rabble up the mob against it.
My local deli is owned and staffed by people from Yemen, all legal. Since the Trump demagoguery the owner from Yemen has staffed the place with mostly hispanic immigrants, many illegal, since they are easier to get than those legal from his family or country.
3
This isn’t just a fast food problem. Yesterday, I was at a Home Depot and the product I needed was in an overhead bin because no one had filled the bin where I, as a customer, would have been able to get it. I asked a nearby cashier to call someone. A man older than me came and got one of the huge ladders they use and got the product for me. He was 70 and said that all the workers — all young — scheduled to work in that department that day had called out.
I’m 65 and would like to work part-time because I don’t want to fully retire yet. I have applied at a few places that clearly hire older workers, but they want to pay me ten dollars an hour or less. I don’t expect to be paid what I was paid on my last job, but my first job out of college in 1977 paid about ten dollars an hour.
I’ll do volunteer work before accepting ten dollars an hour. Employers are insulting my intelligence and a lifetime of experience by offering such low wages. They are also insulting the young people who, unfortunately, need vast amounts of money to go to college now. My tuition and fees
(not including room and board) at a very respectable New Jersey university were $235 a semester from 1973 to 1977. Yes, $235 a semester — thats all. Today, that same university charges about $14,000 for tuition and fees, plus another $12,000 or so for room and board.
If I was a young person today, I would take every opportunity to maximise scholarship money and let someone else make the fries.
810
Yes, Frank, you have just spoken for many thousands of retired potential part-time employees. I donate significant amounts of volunteer time to a good cause in the community, but I do it on my own terms. If I quit volunteering and took a part-time job, I would be back to taking orders from someone else, on their schedule, and perhaps doing tasks I don't always want to do. I'm not going to bow and scrape for a check that won't even cover my gas money and lunch.
100
I just want to point out that $235 in January 1973 is eqiuvalent to $1,376.62 in 2018. His college tuition was less than $1,500 *per semester.* My local community college, the cheapest school in the state, charges more for one 3-credit class.
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His parents generation subsidized state college tuition and the rent was reasonable enough he could live away from home. His gen has chosen a different way to allocate taxes.
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The world today for teens is very different than it was for me. College applications and scholarships want to see more volunteering and if you work, they want the job to align with your intended major. Also, none of these franchise owners mentioned whether they provide a consistent schedule or are the schedules varied day after day, week after week. Sure, a $100 bonus is nice if you made it to 100 hours, but are those 100 hours early morning and/or late night shifts that frequently change?
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I'm 19 years old and currently am looking for a second summer job because the first one pays barely above minimum wage. I've applied to local groccerer stores, Cafes, Wawa, but I never thought about applying to fast food places or Walmart because I never see signs or help wanted ads from them.
The job applications are long and include a screening questionare that is virtually the same one used across all chain store companies. In the end most places were interested in interviewing me but I was turned down because I am a college student who lives on campus which I understand.
Teens aren't lazy. They are trying to do their best and get the best scholarships in high school and focus on the SATs and jumping hoops to get into a decent college and find financial aid. By the time most of them start looking for jobs after high school, they won't find jobs because a lot of these fast food chains and local businesses don't want to train them and have them leave for the school year.
While I agree that some teens are turning towards owning their own businesses, many of them have to live away at college to network and make the best of their education and some majors might have to go to a 4 year college to due to the nature of their major.
Considering the debt we will be in, costs of textbooks, and course fees, a lot of us would do anything to get a nice part time job for the summer to help mitigate that.
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Great perspective. Best of luck as you navigate all this.
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Thanks for your reply, and best of luck to you.
I was a high school and university student in the 60's, a long time ago now. I worked summers and Friday and Saturday nights during high school as a waitress at the restaurant in the local mall. It paid $0.65/hr and I got at the most $1.00 in tips per shift. When I entered 1st year at the local university I had saved the $410 per year tuition and the $100 required for books. I had to borrow $10 from my mother for student union fees. I learned a lot a that job, most of it from the other long term staff. I lived at home for free.
Here's a thought for you. After 2nd year uni, I didn't want to do the waitress job anymore. In about February, I went around to all the profs I had and asked about summer jobs (I was in the science faculty). I was willing to do typing, filing, lab clean up, anything. I found out that most of them had small parts of their research grants from which they could hire help other than their regular lab assistants. The upshot of that was, I had summer jobs until I finished uni that paid me enough for the following year's tuition. My jobs were extended very part time on very flexible hours into the school year. It was great, I got to know my professors, the graduate students, and the lab assistants, and I learned a great deal, not necessarily about the field I was studying. You might try that tactic with your profs, or at the library, book store, or gardening/maintenance yards at school, etc.
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The McDonald’s on Marco Island, Fla starts workers at $10.50 an hour. Yesterday there wasn’t one Anglo face behind the counter other than the manager. Habla English? Kind of. Sort of.
Teens on Marco Island don’t have to work, their cars and IPhones are paid for by their parents. Just driving by the charter high school and seeing the BMW ‘s and other late model imported and domestic cars in the student parking lot and juxtaposing that with the teachers parking lot illustrates my point.
One mother told me that her child has to study to get a scholarship and can’t work part time. Instead of buying the kid a brand new Dodge Charger that money could be invested elsewhere to provide college funds and the kid could get a job to realize the value of a dollar. Not going to happen.
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Simple solution, McDonalds needs to raise its pay scale. This is Economics 101. If they can't make a profit paying a wage which attracts workers, then they go out of business. Maybe the owner makes less money. Maybe the franchise is worth less. This is how capitalism works.
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Sure, but bread used to cost 10 cents a loaf in the 1930's. Now it costs somewhere between $2-5 for the same loaf. Why? Because everyone wants to make more money, get more benefits, have better retirement plans.
However, when one segment of society gets a bump in compensation, everyone around them starts to demand their own bump to maintain parody.
This cycle continues ad infinitum, until the average house in Calif, for example, seems to cost at least $1 million, a halfway decent car costs $30k, sending your kid to even a state university costs at least $50k, etc.
Everyone makes more money these days but everyone is still in the same relative position economically!
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Wrong Joseph, all the money has been going to the 1% for the last thirty years. This tired old line about everybody getting more is just plain wrong.
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Give them European style benefits and watch the openings fill. All of these companies operate overseas what do they do in the Euro Zone?
I have often read that most of the price of a burger is the advertising. Pay and they will come to your door.
The US economy operates by corralling people into economic groupings and forcing poor choices on people with a lack of opportunity.
The scale is in the workers favor for a little while.
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The Dunkin' Donuts franchisee has no backup when an employee missed a shift. Fast food chains have become so lean (and mean) like all other corporations. Corporate media have no problem showing sympathy for the plight of these poor employers. Without the reader comments, I'd believe them.
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In 1976 I earned $3.00 an hour at a part time job. My parents house was worth $80,000. That house is worth $800,000 today. That part time job should be paying $30.00 an hour. It is not a problem that employers are being forced to pay more for labor. As wages go up, the demand for welfare such as food stamps and housing assistance will decrease. Some businesses will fail because they can't compete. That's Capitalism. The value of real estate may decline as the value of labor increases. That is Capitalism also. If Subways will pay me $70 an hour, I'll leave retirement and work part time at Subways. That's Capitalism. If labor is too expensive, businesses will find ways to reduce reliance on labor by introducing automation. That is already happening. If there is a problem, it is that too many young people, both rich and poor, have found ways to avoid working yet still have money to spend. Also, that poor and middle class people who work, don't make enough money to feel good about their jobs.
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Ain't Capitalism wonderful?
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To paraphrase Churchill about Democracy, the worst form of government know to man, except for all the rest. Capitalism is the worst economic system known to man, except for all the rest. The invisible hand described by Adam Smith has created more good than can be calculated. That said, there is nothing wrong with fair and reasonable regulation.
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Michael Green: that is only true in big blue coastal cities. In my hometown -- I still live here! -- my parent's home in 1976 was worth $26,000. Today, you might be able to get....$56,000 for it. Prices have not gone up as much here as the coasts. So should a worker here earn $6 an hour? Is everything to be pegged to REAL ESTATE prices -- which went way down in 2008 but are now sky high? That would be quite volatile for workers!
All this tells us is that your parent's old house is hyper-inflated and it will crash soon.
Minimum wage should absolutely be higher than $7.25 -- that's ridiculous -- but probably about $12 an hour. Remember what is a fair wage in rural West Virginia might not be fair in NYC or San Francisco -- and vice versa.
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I have worked as an executive in the fast food industry for 25 years (now retired). Unlike many other industries, the business model has remained fundamentally the same as the 1950's. These chain restaurants have always relied on new restaurant growth to create brand value with less attention paid to existing store sales growth. They market their concepts to franchisees who are poorly trained to run restaurants and do not have the financial foundation. These franchisees have no idea what they are getting into. They would be better off taking their $250K to $1million and investing it elsewhere. While the industry is struggling, the National Restaurant Association fights against higher wages, employee benefits, nutritional labeling etc. Subway (among others) is the perfect example of a company that grew as fast as it could without regard for cannibalizing franchise sales, a tight labor market, and most importantly serving food the consumer no longer desires.
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This is what happens when your business model is built around part-time staffing at low wages with no benefits. If I can see that from the customer side of the counter, it should have been blatantly obvious to the franchisees when they bought in.
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The reason that most of these jobs are part time is due to the nature of customer demand for fast food. It peaks at the lunch and dinner rushes, and then slows dramatically at other times. Obviously, the restaurant owner doesn't want to pay excess people to work at 2:30 in the afternoon when they are not busy. Retailing and restaurants have always been tough businesses to run. Those jobs also did not have benefits or high wages 40 years ago, too. Much of the problem is that big city fast food places relied on immigrants of questionable legality to staff their restaurants for years, and English speaking citizens knew not to bother applying. Another problem is that colleges look less favorably on working during high school than on volunteering on some project when reviewing college applications.
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In most of the states where the minimum wage for tipped personnel is the federal minimum wage for tipped personnel -- $2.13 an hour -- serving personnel are given unpaid time off on weekdays between 2 pm and 5 pm.
Teens are no longer accustomed to going out for this type of job. For a number of years, they had to compete with low-skilled adult workers who weren't limited to non-school hours for their shifts. Those who are profession-bound also face more pressure to do internships and extracurriculars more directly related to their career goals.
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They also have to compete with highly-skilled adult workers whose companies went bust or laid off a large portion of their work force to make the bottom line prettier, and who need a paycheck but can't find anything better because there are too many of them looking, or whose primary job is highly-skilled but still doesn't pay enough to cover the cost of living.
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For teens, in addition to having hours limited by school and child labor laws, NJ (where I grew up) restricts drivers licenses. Teens aren't allowed to drive without an adult in the car until they're 17, and even then they're not allowed to drive between midnight and 5am (allegedly there are exceptions for work, but it was generally considered more trouble than it was worth). A lot of places near me wouldn't hire anyone under 18 because of this--they just didn't want to bother figuring out scheduling.
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