Wage

Fifty-one percent of working Americans make less than $30,000 a year, new data from the Social Security Administration (SSA) shows. Most of these people either work and/or shop at places like McDonalds and Walmart. They comprise about 70 million working Americans and thus raising the minimum wage to $15 or higher is a way to redistribute the wealth from one low income group to another low income group. Will McDonalds raise prices to pay the higher wage or will they use some of their profits. The average franchise costs $1 million dollars and the average annual sales are $2.7 million with a profit of $154,000. The average owner works 60 hours per week and makes $50 per hour before taxes. The average payroll is $540,000 and the average pay is $10 per hour so if they raised the wages to $15 that would increase payroll to $810,000 which would put them out of business. Thus they are likely to raise the cost of products.