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More than Half of Americans Say They Didn't Get a Pay Raise this Year (marketwatch.com)
Although the economy saw new peaks in 2018, not all Americans report reaping the benefits. An anonymous reader shares a report: The majority of workers say they saw no salary increases this year, according to a new survey. More than 60% of Americans said they didn't get a pay raise at their current job or get a better-paying job in the last 12 months, according to a survey released Wednesday from finance site Bankrate.com. Meanwhile, executives have seen a surge in compensation, according to an August study from the Economic Policy Institute. The average chief executive officer at the 350 largest firms in the U.S. received $18.9 million in compensation in 2017, the study showed, a 17.6% increase over 2016. Despite those disparities, 91% of Americans say they have the same or greater confidence in the job market than they did one year ago, according to Bankrate.com.
$15/hr doesn't go very far these days. Anyone who works a 40/hr week should be well over the poverty line.
If you run a service company your hourly billing rate is based on what you need to make to live. It doesn't matter what the number is or what people perceive as high, if you aren't making that you raise your rate or you come up with some other gimmick or scheme that results in charging more while making the raw rate seem more palatable.
There is no job that if worked full time shouldn't pay enough to live at least a lower middle class lifestyle including flipping burgers. If that means an end to burgers that are actually cheaper than it costs to make them at home so be it. If that means there is no room for a franchiser to scrape cream off the top anymore, so be it. I
f that means we have to stop pretending that the actual work a manager performs is more valuable than that of those they manage, again so be it. Some managers are better than others, that is no different than any profession but it isn't rocket science and certainly shouldn't be compensated anywhere near as highly let alone more highly than rocket science! A good grill cook is more rare than a good manager.