Can Fast Food Workers Survive On Their Pay? Suggested Budget Raises Eyebrows
By Christy Strawser
@cstrawser1
DETROIT (CBS Detroit) Debates raged on Facebook pages and Twitter feeds across metro Detroit as fast food workers took up pickets to protest their wages.
While some Detroit workers demanded $15 an hour, McDonalds paired with VISA to try to help workers across the country figure out how to live on minimum wage.
Instead of shutting it down, the suggestions seemed to make the issue spiral.
The budget HERE on McDonald's "practical money skills" website includes working 40 hours a week at McDonalds and then another 22 hours a week at a different minimum wage job. It's billed as a "great first step toward taking control of your money."
Working 62 hours a week would allow the employee to live in an apartment, drive a car, have heat and electricity, eat -- and put a crisp $100 bill in their savings account every month.
Sound good? Note this: The budget includes a seemingly reasonable $600 a month for rent. But it also includes $20 a month for health care, a $150 car payment, and $50 for heat.
It leaves $25 a day for food, gas, and all sundries. (Toothpaste, anyone?)
The journal's first tip for being "good with your money" is this: "Spend less money than you make."
So, could you make this work?
