Nancy Salgado has been working at McDonald’s in Chicago for 10 years, and for that whole time she has been working at Illinois’ minimum wage, now $8.25 an hour. As a mother with two young children, that puts her below the poverty line of $19,530.
McDonald’s says it can’t afford to pay her and the company’s more than 700,000 other American nonmanagement employees a wage that would lift them above the poverty line. What McDonald’s Corp. can afford to do, though, is buy itself a new corporate jet.
That’s right. Bloomberg News reported earlier this week that McDonald’s Corp. has purchased for the use of its executives a Bombardier Challenger 605, a 12-seat plane that goes for between $27 million and $35 million. (Fries and soft drink not included.)
Meanwhile, Salgado and other McDonald’s employees have been offered a “McResources” telephone help line to call that offers them helpful advice if they are having problems meeting their expenses on their minimum-wage McPaycheck. The advice: Sign up for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (“food stamp”) benefits and Medicaid. This video features the exchange between Salgado and an unidentified respondent on the McResources line.
Taxpayers are spending an estimated $1.2 billion a year supporting McDonald’s workers, according to a recent National Employment Law Project study, because McDonald’s would prefer to tell its employees to get public assistance to pay their food, housing and health care bills than to pay them a wage adequate enough for workers to meet those expenses without government help.
That figure is less than the $1.5 billion in profits that McDonald’s earned in one quarter – the three months ending September 30.
Sign this petition if you agree that McDonald’s should stop buying luxury jets until it pays its workers a living wage and stops shifting costs onto taxpayers. As the petition says, “it’s not right to impoverish your employees while sailing above them at a rate of $2,500 an hour. It’s immoral to do it with a taxpayer subsidy.” And McDonald’s can clearly afford to do better.
The video featuring Salgado is part of a project called Fast Food Forward, a New York-based campaign that strives to win decent wages and basic rights for restaurant workers. The movement has recently won the support of New York City mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio, who has called for an investigation into the practice of fast-food corporations encouraging their employees to obtain public assistance rather than granting them raises. In New York, 60 percent of fast-food workers are forced to rely on public assistance to cover basic needs, according to the National Employment Law Project.
Ultimately, it is criminal that CEOs of corporations like McDonald’s pay their full-time workers wages that keep them below the poverty line, watch as those workers are forced to rely on public assistance to meet their basic needs, and then appear on cable news shows or other public forums and complain about too much government spending on “entitlements” – all while they collect exorbitant pay packages (McDonald’s CEO Donald Thompson earns $13.7 million a year) and enjoy perks like flights on luxury corporate jets. Sign our petition if you agree.
Help us Prepare for Trump’s Day One
Trump is busy getting ready for Day One of his presidency – but so is Truthout.
Trump has made it no secret that he is planning a demolition-style attack on both specific communities and democracy as a whole, beginning on his first day in office. With over 25 executive orders and directives queued up for January 20, he’s promised to “launch the largest deportation program in American history,” roll back anti-discrimination protections for transgender students, and implement a “drill, drill, drill” approach to ramp up oil and gas extraction.
Organizations like Truthout are also being threatened by legislation like HR 9495, the “nonprofit killer bill” that would allow the Treasury Secretary to declare any nonprofit a “terrorist-supporting organization” and strip its tax-exempt status without due process. Progressive media like Truthout that has courageously focused on reporting on Israel’s genocide in Gaza are in the bill’s crosshairs.
As journalists, we have a responsibility to look at hard realities and communicate them to you. We hope that you, like us, can use this information to prepare for what’s to come.
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In addition to covering the widespread onslaught of draconian policy, we’re shoring up our resources for what might come next for progressive media: bad-faith lawsuits from far-right ghouls, legislation that seeks to strip us of our ability to receive tax-deductible donations, and further throttling of our reach on social media platforms owned by Trump’s sycophants.
We’re preparing right now for Trump’s Day One: building a brave coalition of movement media; reaching out to the activists, academics, and thinkers we trust to shine a light on the inner workings of authoritarianism; and planning to use journalism as a tool to equip movements to protect the people, lands, and principles most vulnerable to Trump’s destruction.
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Today, we’re asking all of our readers to start a monthly donation or make a one-time donation – as a commitment to stand with us on day one of Trump’s presidency, and every day after that, as we produce journalism that combats authoritarianism, censorship, injustice, and misinformation. You’re an essential part of our future – please join the movement by making a tax-deductible donation today.
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