Put McDonald's CEO Don Thompson on the McBudget

[question everything]

By Al Lewis

McDonald's found itself mired in a public-relations flap last week over a sample budget it provided to its employees, advising them how to live on the low wages it pays. The fast-food giant meant well, but its sample budget left out useful items like food, heat and gasoline, advancing the argument that nobody can really live on minimum wage. Media reaction ranged from "hilariously obtuse" to "worthy of The Onion," a freebie newspaper offering satire in an age when so many things just satirize themselves.

There is an easy way out of this mess for Oak Brook, Ill.-based McDonald's. It's called leadership. Put Chief Executive Don Thompson on the McBudget. Show the world how to live like a CEO on less than $25,000 a year. Last year, McDonald's gave Mr. Thompson a compensation package worth $13.8 million, or more than 558 times what McDonald's expects employees to make from two jobs. By adopting a McBudget, Mr. Thompson could end the debate over President Barack Obama's plan to raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $9 an hour. Adjusted for inflation, the minimum wage is currently 20% less than it was in 1967—which is why so many people still eat at McDonald's.

(snip)

A bicycle could slash McDonald's corporate aviation costs. It would eliminate the need for gasoline and support Mr. Thompson's weight-loss goals. In May, he boasted at an analyst conference that he'd lost 20 pounds by getting his "butt up" and "working out again" while still eating at McDonald's "every single day." With a healthy lifestyle like that, I'm sure he can easily find health insurance for the $20 a month allotted in the employee sample budget.

(snip)

I would feel more comfortable knowing that a top corporate executive can live on a McBudget, too. Besides, if the minimum wage goes up, McDonald's stock will go down, and we can't have stocks that make up the Dow Jones Industrial Average going down. That's just un-American. McDonald's put out a statement saying the sample budget is "intended to help provide a general outline of what an individual budget may look like." One of its best suggestions is that employees find a second job. With his credentials, Mr. Thompson could easily land additional work at Popeyes or Taco Bell. This would diversify his diet, too.

(snip)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323309404578613752264059748.html

[Marie Marie]

1. I think his second job should be at Papa John's.

They seem to be cut from the same cloth.

[Journeyman]

2. They could do it like that cheesy reality show, call it: "Underpaid Boss" . . .

Then team him with a real minimum wage worker, a single mother with two kids trying to make a go of it at two jobs too. This way, Don Thompson would have a mentor, a "seasoned survivor" who can show him the ins and mostly outs of life on less than a sustainable budget. Oh, he'd still starve, same as his poverty-rich employee with two kids, but at least he'd starve slowly, so we can all get vicarious pleasure from watching him waste away.

[Gravitycollapse]

3. It's really not possible to live a healthy lifestyle while also eating at McDonalds every day.

[alp227]

4. What...the right wing corporate apologist WALL STREET JOURNAL published this? nt/

[question everything]

6. Al Lewis is different

He has a column in the Wall Street Sunday that appears in many newspapers and points his sights at many "holy cows."

[exboyfil]

5. Actually CEOs usually have second jobs

serving on boards of directors for other companies were they vote for whooping pay increases for other CEOs like themselves.

[question everything]

7. Indeed. We have heard of this "400 times the wages of average worker"

for a few decades now. But for this to be true for McDonalds' is really shameful.