McDonald’s employee budget ignores food, heat, reality

McDonald’s has teamed up with Visa to create a website illustrating how its workers should budget for a healthy lifestyle.

Apparently this lifestyle means going without food, clothing, heat or medical insurance.

First off, the budget assumes the employee works a second job, because he only makes $1,105 a month at McDonald’s, working 38.25 hours a week for $8.25 per hour. At the second job, the employee theoretically earns another $955. At the same rate of pay as McDonald’s, this would mean working another 33 hours per week — for a grand total of 71.25.

This employee’s lucky. Minimum wage is $8.25 per hour in Illinois, but the U.S. federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, and four states set the floor below that. South Carolina, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana have no laws governing minimum wage.

Read: The slow-savings time bomb

Another problem with the budget: it does not specifically allot money for food, water or clothing. After media scrutiny, the original $0.00 suggestion for heating changed to $50.00. Another insulting figure is the $20.00 a month allotted for health insurance. For an otherwise uninsured American, $20.00 is the equivalent of crossing your fingers.

Fortunately, the budget pamphlet gives some good advice: it recommends employees open a savings account, and set up direct deposit for paycheques to save on transaction fees.

Read: Canadians to boost savings in 2013

But employees aren’t swallowing it.

Fast-food workers from McDonald’s and Wendy’s have been walking off the job from NYC to Kansas City since Monday, July 31, demanding a living wage. A Chicago minimum wage worker would need to work 1.7 million hours (almost 200 years) to make McDonald’s CEO Don Thompson’s salary, $13.8 million.

The McDonald’s website boasts, “You can have almost anything you want as long as you plan ahead and save for it.” But the site’s own budget shows how impossible that is when you’re making minimum wage.

Read: Savings goals missed due to lack of planning: BMO

As advisors, remember the value of frank discussion with your clients. Their dreams can vastly outstrip their wallets. If so, bring them back to reality.

Also read:

Consumers want to spend, but can’t: CIBC

Canadians rely on luck for finances

Consumers spend thousands on impulse buys