Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
A few weeks ago, the McDonald’s corporation, one of the largest fast food chains in the U.S., alerted its employees to a sample budget provided on its website that could be used as a template for workers’ own spending; ever since, the company has been hit with a slew of critical press about its unrealistic attitude towards employee compensation and spending.
McDonald’s, which to many Americans serves a symbol of the minimum-wage workplace, likely had good intentions when it decided to try to guide its employees towards budgeting their paychecks. However, unintended consequences of this lesson in personal finance quickly became apparent when the Internet lit up with criticism over some of the line items on the “sample” budget provided on the McDonald’s website. For example, the first lines on the budget worksheet ask the employee to fill in their monthly income from both their first and second jobs. Many critics have pointed out that not all McDonald’s employees have the luxury of being able to obtain a second income in a tough economy.
[Check Your Credit: Don’t Guess. Know.® Get your free credit report and score. No credit card required.
Also widely panned was the health insurance slot on the sample budget, which suggested budgeting $20 per month for health coverage. According to Forbes, which reported on the criticism of the McDonald’s budget, the average cost to privately insure an individual in the U.S. today is $215 per month, which means that the $20 proposed by McDonald’s seem highly unreasonable to some. It also highlights the fact that the corporation does not provide insurance to its part-time employees. Overall, critics of corporations that only pay their workers the bare minimum required by law assert that the McDonald’s budget proves that it’s impossible to prosper on minimum wage in the U.S. at its current level.
Despite the criticism from some, others say that McDonald’s was showing a new form of corporate responsibility by attempting to help its employees budget, despite how difficult living on minimum wage can be. Also, many have commented that the release of the McDonald’s budget may prompt Congress to raise the federal minimum wage.
What do you think of McDonald’s effort to encourage its employees to budget?
The post McDonald’s “Sample Budget” For Employees Raises Questions About the Company’s Employee Compensation appeared first on Quizzle Wire.
