I recommend to those who are so strident about the 15.00 minimum wage, etc that they get together, buy or start a franchise, and operate it based on the ideas they espouse (just to show the rest of us low-lifes how easily it can be done).
You hit the nail on the head.
If it’s that easy to run a business and pay these low level workers $15 an hour, and still make a profit for the business, let them show us how it’s done.
I have worked in the finance end of a major fast food company. And based on my experience, the biggest single expense in a fast food franchise is paying the hired help.
The profit margins are smaller than many people think in an individual fast food franchise location. If the help had to be paid $15 an hour, there would be fewer jobs, and the cost of the products sold would have to be higher.
There are other costs too that people don’t know about. In the fast food company I worked in, the franchisees paid 8% of their gross sales off the top, to the Corporate level, as a royalty. They also were locked into buying all of their supplies from certain favored vendors, chosen by Corporate.
My overall point is that while fast food places are profitable for the most part, they are not able to just absorb a doubling of labor costs at the crew level, without either significant job cuts, or significant price increases in food sold.
And if food prices at fast food places went up drastically, it’s predictable that the customers will hit the drive thru much less often. Total gross sales could easily decline, resulting in even more job losses.
This isn’t about making things better, it is about collapsing our system.