Fast Food Workers Strike

[klunderbunker]

Spoiler

You may find yourself waiting longer for McNuggets or a Whopper this week as thousands of workers in seven cities around the country strike for $15 an hour and the right to unionize.

Building on the momentum of an initial strike last November in New York City, organizers say dozens of restaurants in New York City, Chicago, St. Louis, Milwaukee, Kansas City, Detroit and Flint, Mich., will be affected by waves of worker walkouts over the course of the week.

“These workers need a raise and they need representation in the workplace,” said Martin Rafanan, community director for STL735. The acronym stands for “St. Louis Can’t Survive on $7.35,” referring to Missouri’s minimum wage. Rafanan said the group, which plans to strike today and tomorrow, hopes to build on a May strike when about 100 workers walked off the job.

“In this particular set of actions this week, we’re expecting to strike 50 stores and between 100 and 200 workers,” he said, adding that the response to the May strike was greater than anticipated. The group only expected 40 or 50 workers to walk out. “It ended up being a much bigger thing.”

Today’s action could see 500-plus workers at dozens of New York City fast food restaurants abandoning their posts for picket lines, said Jonathan Westin, director of Fast Food Forward and executive director of New York Communities For Change.

At a McDonald's across the street from Yankee Stadium, several dozen people chanted, "We can't survive on $7.25."

In April, 400 fast food employees walked off the job in New York. At twice the size of the group’s inaugural walkout last November, local organizers called that event the biggest fast food strike in the country — until now.

These actions are designed to call attention to “the contradictions between the folks at the top… and the workers themselves living in poverty,” Westin said.

Spokespeople from McDonald’s and Yum Brands (parent company of Taco Bell, KFC and Pizza Hut) referred questions to their trade group, the National Restaurant Association. The association did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“As a corporation, we respect the rights of all workers; however, Burger King Corp. does not make hiring, firing or other employment-related decisions for our franchisees … Burger King restaurants offer compensation and benefits that are consistent with the QSR industry,” a company spokesperson said in a statement via email. QSR is industry jargon for quick-service restaurant, or fast food.

Wendy’s is “still assessing the situation,” company spokesman Bob Bertini said via email. “We have no additional comment.”

This week’s actions come on the heels of a much-lambasted budget guide for McDonald’s workers that recommended they get a second job and budgeted just $20 a month for health insurance, and a report by the National Employment Law Project showing that the vast majority of fast food positions are dead-end jobs. Earlier NELP research found that nearly 60 percent of post-recession job creation was for work that pays an hourly wage of $13.83 or less.

An open letter signed by more than 100 economists and published this month by the University of Massachusetts, Amherst’s Political Economy Research Institute titled, “Economists in Support of a $10.50 U.S. Minimum Wage,” makes the case that raising wages would add just five cents to the price of a Big Mac.

Although fast food jobs are often thought of as work that provides teenagers with spending money, the average age of today’s fast food worker is 32, the paper said, which has much grimmer implications. “If a worker today is employed full time for a full 52-week year at a minimum wage job today, she or he is making $15,080. This is 19 percent below the official poverty line for a family of three,” the paper said

http://www.nbcnews.com/business/whats-their-beef-striking-fast-food-workers-say-low-wages-6C10786787

In a continuation of a story that started a few months ago, fast food workers in a few cities are striking for more money and the right to unionize. Their major complaint is that $7.35 an hour isn't enough to live on for a family. While this is true, the workers are asking for more than another few cents an hour. Their demands include a raise to $15 an hour.

The problem with their theory is these people knew the jobs they were signing up for in the first place. They agreed to work at this job for these wages and now they're saying its not enough. I'm not at all saying the wages are fair, but the people found them acceptable when they took the jobs in the first place.

At the end of the day, these demands seem to be extreme. The right to unionize is one thing, but doubling the wages for unskilled labor is too far. My mom has done physical therapy for nearly twenty years and makes just over the amount that these people are asking for. Fast food work is work that needs to be done, but these demands are too extreme.

Thoughts on this? Are the demands reasonable? Too extreme? Not extreme enough?

 

[Fire Marshall Bill]

That's way too much for such a simple job. A simple job, mind you, that many of these people are still terrible at performing.

I respect these people for working. Period. Too many people in this country don't get jobs because they're lazy and would rather live off of welfare. However, fast food isn't exactly the most complicated or skilled work on the planet. $15 an hour would be more money than many people with much more important jobs would be making. And kb you made a great point. It's not like these people didn't know what their hourly wage would be when they signed up. It's still much better than the minimum wage that was here when I got my first job.

 

[Tattooed Jesus]

I agree that minimum wage does need to be increased but not doubled. The thing that most people fail to realize though is that when minimum wage increases so does the price of everything else. Companies will say well now that I have to pay my employees more, I've got to raise the price of my goods to compensate, which is in reality bullshit because you are already paying your employee the minimum amount you can and making a large profit. Inflation has caused the price of everything from gas to food to clothing to housing to all rise and workers pay has not risen at the same time so that is why there is such a huge gap between the levels of society. Now if you were to slightly increase minimum wage by a dollar or two those making that wage would probably do just a little better than breaking even. If you were to double the minimum wage at this time, the people making that wage would probably be worse off than they are right now because of the rise in price of everything else. Another thing that people doubt consider is a person like myself that has been working at Walmart for the last 3 years really gets screwed here. I started out making $7.50/hr just above minimum wage I am now making $9.35/hr. Almost a 2 dollar increase in pay over 3 years time. Now if minimum wage were doubled would I start making $18/hr doubling my current pay/hr, hell no I wouldn't. If minimum wage was increased by two dollars would I then start making $11/hr, maybe but it's still unlikely they would compensate my current rate of pay by that much. What is more likely to happen is that a person that just walks in off the street would be making just as much or slightly lower amount of money/hr than I am making after working doing the same job for 3 years longer. There really is no way this works out to benefit anyone other than those that are already rich as they would just get more money from those that really don't have it to begin with.

 

[Mustang Sally]

Their demands include a raise to $15 an hour.

Presumably, they're not actually expecting their wages to double....I figure they've drawn a line in the sand with a very high figure in the hopes of negotiating something in the middle. Of course, the problem with aiming too high is that the tactic often stalls real negotiations and can turn the tide of public opinion against the workers and their unions.

Then, there is great difficulty created in the rest of the job market if the applecart is suddenly overturned and fast food workers start making $15/hour. I don't have a handle on what more skilled workers earn, but if it's in the area of $15 now, aren't those people going to look at the gains made by the McDonald's laborers and start demanding more for themselves, on the theory that their jobs, which require more training and skill, should get more pay?

KB's point about these workers having taken their present positions at the salary offered is a strong one. Of course, they could counter by saying they needed a job and this was all they could get. Still, if the level of their skill equals only what this job pays, they might need to seek more training to get something more in line with what they want to earn, rather than demanding that their present employer fork over more money for what they're doing now.

No one thinks they earn enough money, do they? It's a tough old world, for sure.

 

[Harthan]

$15 an hour is pretty unreasonable in the current scheme of wages in the US for an entirely unskilled position. Speaking as a former fast food worker, you don't need a lot going on to manage the job. The simple problem is that the minimum wage is total shit, especially in high cost of living areas like New York City where a lot of the protests are happening right now. $7.25 an hour in the Midwest is a lot different than $7.25 in Manhattan. So what can we do? Raise the minimum wage, but to how much? President Obama has suggested $9 an hour in the past. That seems reasonable - some of the leading economies worldwide do better than that, though others lack minimum wages entirely. Currently the minimum wage puts an individual with multiple children well under the poverty line. Considering the huge number of people who are single parents of multiple children, raising the minimum wage seems like a really good idea, right? The common criticism is that higher minimum wages will raise the cost of labor and cost unskilled laborers jobs as companies do more with less. However, there is very little evidence to support that this has ever actually happened, so it doesn't seem particularly likely. One thing that has happened historically is an increase in unemployment rates for the young (minors), especially teenagers getting part time or summer jobs. Overall, however, there is no real demonstrated correlation between an increase in unemployment and an increase in the minimum wage.

So, raising hourly wages for fast wood workers to $15 an hour is pretty preposterous. Fundamentally, economies need to reward people for having skills and price positions effectively. But a minimum wage increase to $9 would go a long way toward alleviating the concerns of the protestors.

One interesting thought, however, is that despite the lack of historical correlation, the fast food industry is on the precipice of embracing technology to make itself more efficient. There has been a lot of discussion during these protests about computerized ordering and payment. Judging from my previous experience as a teenager working at McDonald's, I would wager you could eliminate about half the staff from a fast food restaurant by turning these roles over to computers. An increase in minimum wage would likely spur the fast food industry to adopt technology faster and possibly would lead to a large reduction in staff. But, this is a change that's happening anyway - even if the minimum wage remains the same, there is going to be a critical point when fast food chains decide it's more profitable to turn over ordering and payment to computers. A minimum wage increase will probably accelerate this process, but it is unavoidable in the long term. Remaining workers would be better compensated and in a position to earn more, while the production, installation, and maintenance of millions of new computers across the country would provide a number of jobs in their own right.

 

[Davi323]

Okay. So they strike. They get fired because they are completely expendable unskilled, ridiculously easy to replace workers. Here is the thing...There are always going to be teenagers, therefore there will always be a large pool of potential fast food employees. Fast food workers striking is completely meaningless, because they have absolutely zero collateral. You know why the unions in each of the pro sports leagues can get away with striking? Because they know they are the best, and that if their league replaces them with scabs, the product suffers and the owners lose money. It is in the best interests of both sides to settle disputes. This is not true of fast food employees. If they get replaced, does anyone notice? Does anyone care?

 

[Trill Co$by]

Well let's be fair here. The cost of living is going to continue to increase, and just because we're scratching and clawing for jobs doesn't mean we should be left to bottom of the barrel wages. 7.25 an hour would be terrific if the economy wasn't so terrible, making it impossible to make through the week, let alone provide for families.

Who knows, maybe having fast food places that hire with a higher minimum could help a lot. There are a few local Sonic Drive-Ins here that don't even hire carhops at minimum wage, just because they know the cost of living isn't cheap... then again, they're surrounded by well populated areas that can make up for the pay they hand out.

I get it, these businesses need to make money and keep profits. But at the same time, not everybody who's working at a McDonald's or Wendy's is using it as an extra curricular activity. Some people who work at these places do have families to feed, bills to pay, and other expenses to pay for. It's not possible to provide for a family with only 7.25 an hour, especially when you consider that it's not guaranteed hours.

Do I think that 15 an hour is reasonable? No. Not at all. Do I think that they're wrong for asking for some more money? Not at all. I also don't think it's wrong for businesses to say no, but at the very least these companies could offer maybe guaranteed salaries or even provide some sort of health care to help their employees. Or who knows, maybe the economy can start spending more money and help lower the cost of living so that 7.25 and hour can be enough to provide for our families.

 

[George Steele's Barber]

My biggest issue with all of this is that a small drink is big enough. Why the heck do I need a Big Gulp to go with my large fry? What non-diabetic seriously drinks that much piss in one week let alone one meal?

In other words I have nothing much to add. My first job paid me $4.25 and hour. I never worked fast food, although I waited tables for a few years. Minimum wage appeals to my conservative side as much as anything. It has reached the point where corporations use it as a crutch to lean on to justify paying people shit. I'd like to see what the free market would do without with the regulation. Sure there would be losers but it would at least bring cream to the top and force some employers to get off their lazy asses and do some work to figure out how to be competitive in the labor market. Maybe government could use the tax code to incentivize (is that a word?) companies to pay more.

If you are someone without much education, learn a trade. As a new homeowner for the second time in four years I can tell you that being skilled pays well as long as you bust your ass and find the work. I just did the math and realized that we paid a handyman about $35 an hour recently, cash. Otherwise look to move to North Dakota and work the shale fields. Burger King is not going to get you what you want out of life. Unless you want heart disease.

 

[justinsayne]

Here's a fucking thought, if they're not making enough than maybe they should go out & get a second fucking job. Perhaps work harder & manage what money you do make a little better, develop skills & work ethic that are going to help you get a better, higher paying job. Then again this is America, why do that when you can bitch about not be paid enough & just demand more money despite the fact you haven't done shit to actually earn it.

 

[ThatRandomPeep]

Sorry justinsayne but what you just said is wrong in so many ways, but I'm not going to tell you that some people don't want to work or that some people don't want to get two jobs. That's not an argument I want to make because I can't make it.

However if you paid a bit more attention before just blurting out that everyone complaining needs to get two jobs then you'd know that majority KNOWS they need two jobs and HAS two jobs and even a recently MCD's (or another fast food place but I think MCD's) basically admitted that most of the people who work on the floor (Meaning the ones who make the minimum) get a good bi if not most of their money from a SECOND JOB!

Don't believe me well you can read this http://news.yahoo.com/mcdonalds-admits-accidentally-just-cant-live-minimum-wage-215441811.html or you can look it up yourself.

Back on topic though do I think $15 is to much, well as much as a feel for the employees I have to say yes. Fast food viewed from the outside doesn't seem like a hard job but I have an old school friend who does it and she says that for her it was a nightmare when she first got in the business and it often is for those who are looking for their first job. She also admitted though that it's way easy now and she could get out of it if she had another offer on the table. She says everyone where she works is replaceable but if they were all replaced by teens who where just getting into working then all service would suck because of inexperience.

So final verdict, $15 is to much, but $7.25 has been to little for to long. Fast Food seems easy but if it was all high school kids fixing your food without someone teaching them how to do it and helping them learn through their first job/real world experience then the industry would suck and probably die off. Still the training isn't that much and normally most people can do these jobs no problem, but many know they need a 2nd job and have one in order to get by. So at the end of the day I say raise minimum wage, but not to $15 that's to high, however I think that $10 is fair the employee pays out more and gets happier workers and the workers get a better pay day that helps them to not just survive but help them to thrive in this economy .

 

[Poop Master Flex]

That sounds a little too much for a burger slinger if you ask me. Frankly that kind of job isn't worth much more than 7.35 an hour anyways. Its fast food,you deal with customers, make food, janitorial work, possible managerial work (and those people do get paid more) and converse with the rest of your employees, sounds like horrendous back breaking labor to me.

I don't know how it is in the States (although I assume on this its quite similar) but there was a reason your first job when you were 15 was working at McDonald's and there was another reason why so few people stayed: it wasn't made to be a career, it was simply there to put a little extra money in your pocket and to give you the bare necessities if you weren't living with your parents. Yeah I knew people who had families and their job supported their families but they usually had another source of income coming in or they were just doing it until they could learn a skill to find a better paying job.

I'm sorry but a fast food worker is the definition of an expendable asset, they may as well be young Conan pushing the wheel of pain. It may serve a purpose but you can literally put another 100 million people in that position and they would do the job just fine.

I think its ridiculous these people actually think working at McDonald's should be enough to support a family. If you hate the pay so much learn a trade, go back to school, do something that pays more money, get a second job if you are in fact useless but don't be dumb enough to think McDonalds should pay you $15 dollars an hour. My first job out of college (WITH a degree mind you) was less than $15 dollars an hour and that was with a skill that pays well but it takes time to get there. Now with that said fast food workers who have little to no feasible skills want $15 an hour to make me a burger and press a button that drops and raises the fries for them? Fuck off!

 

[Mighty NorCal]

No, 7.75 is not enough to live off of. Unfortunatey, that is what fast food worker jobs pay, because they are interchangeabe, and require very little skill or education.

If you are planning on a job which will allow a living to be made, perhaps you should not work in fast food.


Duh.

 

[HBsam31]

Okay. So they strike. They get fired because they are completely expendable unskilled, ridiculously easy to replace workers. Here is the thing...There are always going to be teenagers, therefore there will always be a large pool of potential fast food employees. Fast food workers striking is completely meaningless, because they have absolutely zero collateral. You know why the unions in each of the pro sports leagues can get away with striking? Because they know they are the best, and that if their league replaces them with scabs, the product suffers and the owners lose money. It is in the best interests of both sides to settle disputes. This is not true of fast food employees. If they get replaced, does anyone notice? Does anyone care?

This is the absolute truth. I am a restaurant chef, and I employ skilled cooks. These cooks have went to school. Some even go to The Art Institute for four years. Some that have worked for me have spent quite a bit of money in school and end up with a BA in food science. Generally their starting wage in the industry is 10 bucks an hour. I recently took a chef job in a smaller town where the cooks start at 7.50 to 8.00 an hour. These are skilled cooks that have an education in their field. What we do isn't fast food, but I used the example to show what skilled cooks start at. Generally if they want too much money we just replace them. Unfortunately a cook of any kind is usually replaceable. My top tier guys don't make 15 an hour, so for a fast food worker to demand that is crazy. If I was their boss i would just let them all go, and find the next group of workers. I am not saying I agree with this, but it is the nature of any food service business whether it be a fast food joint or a 5 star restaurant. I wish all of my workers could make 15 an hour, but it just isn't going to happen. Bump them up to 9 and honestly for the work that they got into they should be happy.

 

[TWJC: The Beginning]

minimum wage needs to be more. Nobody working 40 hours a week should be on welfare. If that means 10 an hour, so be it. 15 is probably a bit much, but definitely more. If a company like McDs or Wal Mart undercompensates their workers so much that they are on welfare, that's essentially tax dollars subsidizing a billion dollar company's profits. Which is complete bullshit. Also, raising the pay of these workers wouldn't add that much more to the end good considering that minimum wage labor isn't a huge chunk of the cost it takes to produce each item.

As far as the "they don't deserve it, they don't work hard enough", Costco pays their employees well and their workers work better. Working a shitty job, standing over a hot grill for less than you need would make anyone pissy. I've worked at McDs a couple times and could only handle it for about 2 months. It's an awful, awful job.

Also, I'd like some stats to back up the claim that most of these workers are teens. I know for a fact they aren't and wish I could find the study. Basically, you need workers to cover the hours the kids are in school.

Finally "maybe get a better job" is laughable. yea, just go out to the job store and find a better one. That's easier said than done. Especially if you were born to a single teen mom in a bad neighborhood and go to a dropout factory school that doesn't equip you for anything better. They do find better paying jobs, it's called selling weed. You increase minimum wage and you fix a lot of things. You can't expect people to magically know how to succeed in life especially when their entire existence and environment is telling them the exact opposite. Please spare me any anecdotal stories, they aren't valid.

 

[H33LTurn]

Think about how rich these fast food organizations are. They have multimillionaires as owners, open several locations around the globe and engage in an almost criminal amount of advertising. The minimum wage is not a livable wage and theres hardly any room for advancement in the fast food industry. I understand the contempt some hard working people have towards those who's job is to say "how may I take your order" and are demanding a higher wage but the truth is these companies can afford to pay their workers significantly more and even those with an extensive advanced educational background end up working in fast food places. The economy is dismal and here's a little secret no political party or organization will be willing to tell you: decreasing wages is a huge part of the problem. Wages have been on a steady decline for years and show no sign of improvement. Meanwhile, the cost of living has increased six fold in the past couple of decades. That leads to a work force that, regardless if it spends its time behind a counter or in an office, has a bachelors degree or a GED, is not making enough money to survive. The wealth gap, however, is increasing drastically. What's criminal is that these companies get huge tax breaks, have rich owners, but refuse to pay their work force a descent amount of money.

 

[The Kid]

Heel turn wrote pretty much what I was going to write. Fast food workers work very hard and I also believe they're not allowed to take tips, which is unfair. It's also hard to manage, though, but you can donate your leftover change to charities, but not the workers.

 

[wrestlingfan]

Everyone is saying why don't these fast food workers just get a real job? I honestly think that most of them would've went to school and gotten an education if the opportunities were there. Though that doesn't mean they should be paid $15 for serving unhealthy food.

 

[Slash-LN]

This is the absolute truth. I am a restaurant chef, and I employ skilled cooks. These cooks have went to school. Some even go to The Art Institute for four years. Some that have worked for me have spent quite a bit of money in school and end up with a BA in food science. Generally their starting wage in the industry is 10 bucks an hour. I recently took a chef job in a smaller town where the cooks start at 7.50 to 8.00 an hour. These are skilled cooks that have an education in their field. What we do isn't fast food, but I used the example to show what skilled cooks start at. Generally if they want too much money we just replace them. Unfortunately a cook of any kind is usually replaceable. My top tier guys don't make 15 an hour, so for a fast food worker to demand that is crazy. If I was their boss i would just let them all go, and find the next group of workers. I am not saying I agree with this, but it is the nature of any food service business whether it be a fast food joint or a 5 star restaurant. I wish all of my workers could make 15 an hour, but it just isn't going to happen. Bump them up to 9 and honestly for the work that they got into they should be happy.

I can echo this. I worked in a banquet kitchen at a hotel and only had minimal experience but I came in at minimum wage because they knew if I didn't want the job someone else would. Eventually I moved to the hotel's restaurant and learned the menu and became a cook in that kitchen so I was available to either work in the restaurant or in the banquet kitchen if they needed me. I still worked for minimum wage because again they knew they could easily train someone to do what I was doing.
I also spent time working at the front desk of a different hotel and got screwed over when it came time to get a raise because every time my review came up the minimum wage here went up so they counted that as my raise.
If I didn't like it I could easily find a job somewhere else.
Now I see Costco here is hiring in at $11.50 an hour with no experience needed and if you're there for a certain amount of time you get full benefits. Retail is no harder than working fast food. I think $11.50 an hour is an awesome deal if you have no experience.
So I could see fast food places paying more than they are at the moment but I definitely disagree with bumping wages up to $15 an hour.

 

[AndThat'sTheBottomLine]

I remember when minimum wage went up to $7.25. I was a waiter at a restaurant in my home town trying to save up money for college at the age of 16 in a Shoney's. They pay waiters/waitresses $2.13 an hour plus tips which doesn't at all equal minimum wage so I could understand them wanting a raise. I soon ended up as a cashier making said minimum wage and for a kid still living with his parents, that was awesome. But now I'm married and I can guarantee that minimum wage isn't enough to get by. I work at Walmart now making $8.55 an hour. My wife is a nurse so we make it fine. But for someone trying to support a family working in fast food, minimum wage isn't nearly enough. It's utterly ridiculous that these people work for millionaires and in some cases, billionaires but are barely scraping by and in some cases, not even able to do that. College is expensive as fuck and jobs just don't grow on fucking trees. Is $15 an hour too much? Fuck yeah it is but $9 an hour isn't at all unreasonable. Give them a couple of dollars more an hour, toss in healthcare and you'll have a happy bunch of people.

 

[justinsayne]

If you raise the minimum wage, you raise the cost of living, the price of everything else goes up as well, & anybody who is making more than minimum wage already is NOT getting an automatic raise if minimum wage is increased, so the value of what they're getting paid per hour actually ends up decreasing. The people who think raising minimum wage is the answer clearly are not seeing the much much larger picture.

As for people claiming you can raise a family off fast food wages, no shit, but if the best you can fucking do is a fast food job, then you probably shouldn't be raising a fucking family, or you could, you know, work harder, get a second job, etc. instead of bitching that you don't get paid enough.

 

[ヒュー　G.　レックション]

So did this strike affect anybody in the US? Were people unable to get Big Macs?

 

[TWJC: The Beginning]

If you raise the minimum wage, you raise the cost of living, the price of everything else goes up as well, & anybody who is making more than minimum wage already is NOT getting an automatic raise if minimum wage is increased, so the value of what they're getting paid per hour actually ends up decreasing. The people who think raising minimum wage is the answer clearly are not seeing the much much larger picture.

As for people claiming you can raise a family off fast food wages, no shit, but if the best you can fucking do is a fast food job, then you probably shouldn't be raising a fucking family, or you could, you know, work harder, get a second job, etc. instead of bitching that you don't get paid enough.

You are terrible at economics. Raising minimum wage actually wouldn't "raise the cost of everything else". Why? Because he cost of any one good to produce isn't 100% minimum wage labor. Let's just do a quick math experiment.

Let's say you sell an item for 1 dollar.
Let's say 50% is labor cost.
Let's say 50% of your labor cost is minimum wage labor.
You increase he cost of minimum wage by 25% (roughly what an increase to 9 is).
That's not a 25% increase in price. That's a 25% increase on 25% of the good. Or a 6% increase. Your dollar menu is now the dollar point six menu and taxpayers aren't subsidizing your labor because you're a greedy piece of shit who doesn't want to pay people better.


Also, fuck you for your fast food statement. Fast food and other minimum wage jobs are all some people can find. Many with a degree. "Work harder, get a second job" oh yea. Just go get a second job. I mean, the first was so easy to find. Also "work harder"? Lol okay, because some jobs require a degree to move up, which you can't afford because you aren't paid enough.


Here's a secret. "Job creators" are consumers. If consumers have more money, the economy booms. When the top has more money, it gets hoarded. This is called the marginal propensity to save/consume. Bottom line is that if a 40 hour work week doesn't cover the basic cost of living, then welfare must. If a person who works 40 hours a week is on welfare, then we (taxpayers) aren't subsidizing some mythical Reagan era "welfare queen", we are subsidizing soulless non person corporations.