McDonald's Offers Employees Some Handy Budgeting Tips

Advocates for local fast-food workers have been circulating some budgeting tips for employees they found in a handout from McDonald's, Visa, and Wealth Watchers International®. The McD's sample budget says that if workers get a second job and don't pay their heating bill, they can earn half of what families need for a "secure" standard of living!

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Take a look at the budgeting handout—with a smiling, presumably two-job mother on the cover—over here. (If McDonald's pulls that link for some reason, you can see a Facebook version here.)

The numbers ("food" is not a category, but apparently comes out of the "spending money" budget—so fiscally helpful!):

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(They left out a line item in the "expenses" column for wage theft.)

Here are some recent numbers from the Economic Policy Institute about what a one-parent/one-child household in the Seattle metro area needs to afford a "secure yet modest" standard of living:

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The handout concludes: "Helping you succeed financially is one of the many ways McDonald's is creating a satisfying and rewarding work environment."

That's some bald-faced economics right there—and even the micro-economists (emphasis on micro) running the minimum-wage world know it.