So I had this amazing burger at TGI Friday’s. And then I started feeling guilty. I was watching our waiter, with all of his flare, and wondering how much he gets paid hourly. I asked my coworkers and they responded – ‘probably about minimum wage’.
Minimum wage here in
It’s easy not to think about this stuff, and it’s easy to assume that they get paid 5 dollars a day because that’s about what they need to live in
I know that I’m ‘getting political’ by bringing this stuff up - and I understand that economics aren’t simple – but why do we think it’s ok to take economic advantage of people just because we can? I'm sure that there will be many other questions I post here along the way. Always feel free to comment, I love a good discussion - even if I'm a few countries away.
All my best to all of you!
2 comments:
Sounds like Broders'.
One question though...in the case of our friend the server, does he also get tips in addition to that minimum wage?
When I read your blog, I began thinking about how the economics of an American company like Fridays' even survives in a poverty-stricken area like Guatemala. I imagine that they basically survive off of tourists and the wealthy...otherwise they probably aren't doing that well, financially. In order to stay open and actually make some money, they have to cut their costs, and usually the first thing to go is labor cost. So maybe they maintain that minimum wage standard because they would not be able to afford to stay open because it would be too costly? I don't know, just throwing out ideas.
I also found this piece of information regarding what you wrote, from the US Department of State:
The law sets national minimum wages for agricultural and nonagricultural work. The daily minimum wage was $6.95 (52.91 quetzales) per day for agricultural work and $7.12 (54.15 quetzales) for nonagricultural work.
The minimum wage did not provide a decent standard of living for a worker and family. The National Statistics Institute calculated that the minimum food budget for a family of four was $197.40 (1,502.28 quetzales) per month, significantly above the $208 (1,587.40 quetzales) per month that could be earned at the nonagricultural minimum wage rate. The institute's estimate of a family's total needs, including housing, clothing, utilities, and healthcare, was $360.23 (2,741.38 quetzales). Labor representatives noted that even where both parents worked, the minimum wage did not allow the family to meet its basic needs.
perhaps you should get an MBA to explore this further? my managerial economics course had a lengthy debate on exactly this topic in our last two class sessions, and it is a really interesting study of balancing the quantifiable economic values of willingness to pay, profitability, willingness of workers to work at a given wage, etc with qualitative questions like what is a fair wage, who is the company responsible to (in Friday's case, I don't think they are a public company, but they are franchised so i'm not entirely sure how that works), and what sense of social responsibility do the decision makers have.
on a personal note, every time i have eaten at friday's in a foreign country (i believe 3 times, in england, norway and france), i've felt that i paid far too much. they're definitely catering to americans needing a taste of home.
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