Let me guess. The marketing experts clowns never expected that. Ditto for the clowns at the top of the company.
Sam: ‘Raising pay will increase automation, leading to fewer workers.’
Henry Ford: ‘Yeah, about that. Wanna see what happened when I doubled wages in January 1914 while perfecting the assembly line?’
(The rise in cost/drop in production was due to WW1, but the secular trend came back once this distortion was removed.)
How much is one expected to tip at Wendy’s?
I fear I’m terribly out of step, because I don’t tip at ANY fast food place.
Your Ford example is a non-sequitur. No one disputes that ramping up assembly lines and tirelessly working on improving factors of production can result in higher worker productivity. Mostly, those workers became more productive because Ford invested heavily in his factories, allowjng each worker’s labor to be magnified. And he had to pay his workers more because there were shortages of good workers and rapid turnover was eating his lunch in training costs.
Now try the same experiment for farm workers. Automation eliminated 90% of farm labor.
We are headed for a future where fast-food work will consist mostly of two or three people overseeing a number of machines doing the actual work. They will probably get paid more, need training, and worker productivity in the industry will improve. There will just be far fewer workers.
Tim Horton’s is a well marketed company, from the perspective of the marketing side of things like advertising. In terms of product design, though, the chain is trying desperately to keep up with a market in Canada that keeps presenting the customer with new choices.
Surprise surprise, a coffee joint doesn’t make the finest lunches.
But I wouldn’t expect a minimum wage worker to be able to afford to eat out most nights, even at the more economical establishments (like Wendy’s or, as I prefer, Cracker Barrel).
@Sam_Stone, you tip for fast food?
~Max
Here’s the Chipotle announcement:
Notice it’s an average of $15/hour in the USA, not everyone gets $15 minimum.
No, but should a meal out for a family at Wendy’s cost almost 20% of your weekly gross income? That’s the kind of spending recommended a family spend on rent (keep it under 30%) and this family could spend it on one meal per week at Wendy’s.
A meal at Wendy’s shouldn’t cost $13 to begin with, according to… Wendy’s.
“It’s not sustainable for them to expect people to show up and spend $13 on a burger on a consistent basis,” said Kurt Kane, chief concept and marketing officer at Wendy’s Co., which is among the fast-food burger chains engaged in an intense price war to attract and keep their core, budget-conscious customers.
Source: Fox Business article from 2017, “Diners Are Finding $13 Burgers Hard to Swallow”.
If Wendy’s can’t afford to sell burgers at cheaper prices, the reasonable conclusion is that Wendy’s has an unsustainable business model.
~Max
Your Wendy’s doesn’t have the 4 for $4? Or the new old $5 Biggie Bag?
~Max
He’s in Canada. $13 Canadian is currently 10.76 USD.
Wendy’s Menu Prices
Closest match
Dave’s Hot ‘n Juicy 3/4 lb. Triple with Cheese – Combo $10.36
Right, and productivity improves, and productivity is where our wealth comes from. Those people will be displaced, but there is an increasing need for workers who interact with people. If the US has free pre-K, think of how many more pre-K teachers we’ll need. Also nursing for an aging population.
Might be good to move some of these people into professions keeping people well from ones making them sick.
Restaurants and other food suppliers have been trying to cut costs by using cheaper ingredients or reducing portion sizes or fiddling with the menu since forever; why are you implying that this is somehow new or a reaction solely to higher labor costs?
For example, McDonalds used “lean beef trimmings” (a.k.a. “pink slime”) in its hamburgers for years, stopping use only due to public outcry amidst widespread publicity about the filler. Do you think they did so to improve the taste, or because pink slime was cheaper than grindings from better cuts of meat?
From the Wendy’s website, Dave’s Single at Wendy’s on Decarie Blvd, Montreal costs $5.89. Wendy’s of Yonge St, Toronto: $5.59. I’m not saying Sam_Stone doesn’t know his own Wendy’s, just that this $13 Wendy’s burger is unusually expensive.
~Max
The Single combo, however, is $9.29 (Canadian, I assume) at the Montreal location.
Put a $3.71 tip on top of that, and there you go.
I mean, my mistake, I kinda started it, but pinning down Canadian prices of fast food doesn’t do much in helping us understand labor issues in the US. If I had to pay $15 for a baconator combo, though, I’d likely lose 10 pounds. 
Hey… those Canadian Wendy’s prices… do they include tax? Or is another 6-12% tacked onto that $9 Single combo in Montreal?
ETA: tax is not included in the above prices. Never mind.
More accurately “no one would be productive doing the shit jobs that no one wants to do but still need doing.”
Pretty sure Elon Musk would still be building self driving electric cars and Mars rockets even if he were earning UBI.
-
From 1978 to 2013, CEO compensation, inflation-adjusted, increased 937 percent, a rise more than double stock market growth and substantially greater than the painfully slow 10.2 percent growth in a typical worker’s compensation over the same period.
-
The CEO-to-worker compensation ratio was 20-to-1 in 1965 and 29.9-to-1 in 1978, grew to 122.6-to-1 in 1995, peaked at 383.4-to-1 in 2000, and was 295.9-to-1 in 2013, far higher than it was in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, or 1990s.
They can’t cut any overhead? Just raise prices? That’s weird