Propaganda Debunking Group - Hamburgers and the Minimum Wage

[Algernon Moncrieff]

Omaha Steve posted this in 2015. It continues to make the rounds:

For those fast food employees striking for $15 an hour, let's do some math.

At $15 an hour Johnny Fry-Boy working 40 hours per week would make $30,000
annually.

An E1 (Private) in the military makes $18,378 annually.

An E5 (Sergeant) with 8 years of service only makes $35,067 annually.

So you're telling me, Sally McBurgerflipper, that you deserve as much as
those kids getting shot at, deploying for months in hostile environments,
and putting themselves on the line every day protecting your unskilled
butt!?

Here's the deal Sweetheart Baconator, you are working in a job designed for
a kid in high school who is actually supposed to be learning how to work and
earning enough for gas, movies , and hanging out with their equally goofy
high school pals. If you have chosen this as your life long profession, you
have failed.

If you don't want minimum wage, don't have minimum skills!

If you can read this, thank a teacher.

If it's in English, thank a Veteran.

A somewhat more racist variant

Low military pay was not mentioned in the State Of The Union speech. However, increasing the minimum wage was for those fast food employees striking for $15 an hour. Let's do some math: At $15 an hour Johnny Fry-Boy would make $31,200 annually.

An E1 (Private) in the military makes $18,378. An E5 (Sergeant) with 8 years of service only makes $35,067 annually.

So you're telling me, LaTisha McBurger flipper, that you deserve as much as those kids getting shot at, deploying for months in hostile environments, and putting their collective asses on the line every day protecting your unskilled butt!?

Here's the deal, Baconator, you are working in a job designed for a kid in high school who is learning how to work and earning enough for gas, and hanging out with their equally goofy high school pals. If you have chosen this as your life long profession, you have failed. If you don't want minimum wage, don't have minimum skills.

My Two Cents worth, just saying......

The best rebuttal I've seen is here at MyRightWingDad

This is highly misleading.

It is true that an E-1 base pay is relatively low. However they also receive housing and food, either directly or through a tax free allowance called BAH and BAS. BAH varies by region with the cost of housing. In San Diego, an expensive market that has a high military presence, an unmarried E-1 Marine fresh out of boot camp will receive at BAH of $1713 per month, tax free, plus about $350 a month for food, tax free. That's an additional $25000 a year, tax free, and it goes up every year and every promotion. So the real "pay" for our hypothetical E-1 is closer to $43000 a year, with more than half of that exempt from taxation.

There are other benefits too: full medical and dental, tax free shopping, GI bill for college, etc.

Maybe this is not enough to pay our men and women in uniform. If you think so, ask yourself why it's so low? Answer: because their compensation package must compete with other opportunities, including minimum wage jobs. A low minimum wage means you can pay recruits less (not to mention other private sector workers). Raise the former and the latter will have to rise to be competitive.

There's also a sad (and cliche) helping of class on class warfare in this post, the same attitude that allows things like slavery and Jim Crow to exist. Too many people are happy to get shafted so long as they have someone else they can look down on.