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McDonald's to Employees: Get a (Second) Job

According to Tom Philpott of Mother Jones, 'there has been more fast food news than I can keep up with, most of it involving McDonald's - - -'

'The first item involves wages.One way Big Food contributes to our national weight problem is by paying its vast army of workers a pittance. Poverty is heavily associated with obesity and other chronic health conditions. The industry profits by holding costs down, and it does that in part by paying as little as possible. A 2012 analysis by the Food Chain Workers Alliance found that 86 percent of the 20 million people who work within the food chain—that's a sixth of the overall US workforce—bring home less than a living wage. Food-system workers are 50 percent more likely to rely on food stamp (SNAP) benefits than the overall working population, the report found. Not surprisingly, the food-system workforce is getting restive—hence recent strikes by Walmart workers, as well as walk-offs by fast-food employees in New York City,  Detroit, Seattle, and St. Louis and fast-food/retail worker strikes in Chicago and Milwaukee. Fast-food workers in seven cities plan to strike next week.
Perhaps in response to such mounting pressures, McDonald's was recently moved to gift its employees with a "Practical Money Skills Budget Journal," "brought to you by Visa Inc. and Wealth Watchers International." Get a load of the "sample monthly budget," which has generated much hilarity across the internet:

The most practical tip: In order to obtain a living wage working at McDonald’s 35 hours per week (monthly income: $1,105), get a second job. Least practical facet: as MSNBC’s Maria Perez notes, it "leaves out necessary expenditures like food, child care, clothes and gas." Oops. All of that, evidently, falls under the "daily spending money goal" line—a whopping $25 per day. As for health insurance, the suggested monthly allotment of $20 won't even cover the $14 per week McDonald's itself charges employees, according to The Wall Street Journal.'