Worker wages: Wendy's vs. Wal-Mart vs. Costco

[bobclark86]

40. Cesar's a 19-year veteran forklift operator...

You need training (like a certificate) to be an approved forklift operator -- they can easily kill a person if not handled correctly. Cinnamon is a counter worker at a fast food joint, making a starting wage in a non-skilled job. Comparing one to the other is bull, made solely to make Costco look all noble and perfect (they have a hell of a PR department getting the word out on this). The story doesn't ask this question: What is the starting salary for a checkout worker at Costco? We NEED that to make a decent comparison. Otherwise, we have an apples to cheeseburgers comparison.

To the "reporter" who wrote the original piece: Get back to us with something that doesn't scream "reheated turd of a press release" and we'll talk.

FUN FACT OF THE DAY: I work for a daily newspaper. I know how the job is supposed to be done. This "story" isn't it. I say the same thing to lots of people when I see this kind of crap. BTW, I know Costco is superior to most other big boxes and fast food, but we don't need to spice this up with skilled HMEO (heavy machine equipment operator) posts to the dude saying "you want fries with that" to prove the point.

THAT SAID: We obviously need to change something in this country. We need to raise the minimum wage while a) preserving extra pay for those making more than minimum wage (because companies historically have raised wages of those over the old minimum wage but under the new minimum wage to exactly the new minimum wage, blowing out previous raises for longevity, merit, etc.), and b) preserving the buying power, as most businesses use rising minimum wages as an excuse to jack up prices, leaving those at minimum wage worse off than before.