It's not that businesses stubbornly refuse to raise wages - it's that they can't afford to. A lot of local small businesses were barely staying afloat even before March 2020.
Why shouldn't Sandwich Maker be a viable career? They definitely contribute more to society than HR professionals or agile coaches.
If that were true, then DMV employees would have to pay for the privilege of working there.
In all seriousness, though, there are huge swathes of people working in bullshit jobs, and many of them are well-compensated. There are power dynamics, misinformation and far too much complexity at play to simply say "society places more value on the work performed by people in higher paying jobs".
Value creation can be used to increase that power, but there are many organizations (picture the NCAA or your favorite employer of H-1B1s maybe?) that have put in the hard work to make sure the work of value creation doesn't give individuals too much power to extract value.
There are many jobs that are low paid because they are low skilled and have low barriers to entry, but otherwise very useful to society e.g. refuse collectors.
If I fundamentally disagree with fast food as objects of consumption than I might think every job in this field should not be viable. There are costs to society (“externalities”) that places like Wendy’s are not held responsible for (obesity epidemic).
All said, Sandwich Maker is a viable career, to me, if its in a boutique/gourmet shop where the food is prepared from scratch and with precision care. The prices will be higher, extra skill is involved, and then the Maker can command a higher wage.
The meme of whether or not fast food is a viable/respectful career is just a manifestation of more fundamental problems with growth optimized capitalism.
This is a valid point. Western society should be making an effort to ensure that there are cheap, convenient, healthier fast food options like what you see in Asia.
My comment was more in response to the parent, who was drawing a distinction between "real jobs" and "entry level jobs". I believe we should treat people in low-skill jobs with more respect, as they actually produce things we need and want as a society. Many people in "real jobs", on the other hand, produce (or facilitate the production of) nothing.
There was also the geometry of the slice to be refined: the precise relationships between the width and height of the slice and also its thickness which would give the proper sense of bulk and weight to the finished sandwich: here again, lightness was a virtue, but so too were firmness, generosity and that promise of succulence and savour that is the hallmark of a truly intense sandwich experience.
The proper tools, of course, were crucial, and many were the days that the Sandwich Maker, when not engaged with the Baker at his oven, would spend with Strinder the Tool Maker, weighing and balancing knives, taking them to the forge and back again. Suppleness, strength, keenness of edge, length and balance were all enthusiastically debated, theories put forward, tested, refined, and many was the evening when the Sandwich Maker and the Tool Maker could be seen silhouetted against the light of the setting sun and the Tool Maker’s forge making slow sweeping movements through the air trying one knife after another, comparing the weight of this one with the balance of another, the suppleness of a third and the handle binding of a fourth.
Three knives altogether were required. First there was the knife for the slicing of the bread: a firm, authoritative blade which imposed a clear and defining will on a loaf. Then there was the butter-spreading knife, which was a whippy little number but still with a firm backbone to it. Early versions had been a little too whippy, but now the combination of flexibility with a core of strength was exactly right to achieve the maximum smoothness and grace of spread.
The chief amongst the knives, of course, was the carving knife. This was the knife that would not merely impose its will on the medium through which it moved, as did the bread knife; it must work with it, be guided by the grain of the meat, to achieve slices of the most exquisite consistency and translucency, that would slide away in filmy folds from the main hunk of meat. The Sandwich Maker would then flip each sheet with a smooth flick of the wrist on to the beautifully proportioned lower bread slice, trim it with four deft strokes and then at last perform the magic that the children of the village so longed to gather round and watch with rapt attention and wonder. With just four more dexterous flips of the knife he would assemble the trimmings into a perfectly fitting jigsaw of pieces on top of the primary slice. For every sandwich the size and shape of the trimmings were different, but the Sandwich Maker would always effortlessly and without hesitation assemble them into a pattern which fitted perfectly. A second layer of meat and a second layer of trimmings, and the main act of creation would be accomplished.” ― Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless
Sandwiches typically contain fresh ingredients (we'd call a gresy heart attack patty between two buns a burger), and Wendy's is a completely different chain that sells dairy products and hot dogs.
Also, who staffs Wendy’s from morning until schools let out during the day? I haven’t seen seasonal fast food restaurants anywhere near me.
The simplicity of each individual job means that nobody ever has just one job at a fast food place. Stick around for any amount of time and you'll get rotated through every available position.
That's why the pay is low, because the skill set is widely accessible. I'm not sure why people insist that these kind of jobs are teaching valuable skills.
All that is happening is the basic process of working. They could learn it in any context, at any point in their lives. There is no justification to pay people starvation wages.
For someone that didnt go to college, seeing a 2yr stint on a resume as a fast food worker tells me more about that persons work ethic, reliability, and general sense of getting stuff done vs your avg grad.
Its not only skills but its the information being conveyed
Edit, I'm being sarcastic. It's glib to suggest that somehow all of these businesses can just magically raise prices. It's a complex situation.
And unemployment has to be paid by someone too...
During the pandemic, restaurants lobbied hard as hell against restrictions and cheated at every opportunity what restrictions they were obliged to follow. Our governor ordered bars to be shut down around 9pm during a surge last year and everyone joked that was great because it meant apparently the 'rona only came out to infect people after 10pm.
I really wanted to meet a prospective date and we wanted to be as safe as possible. We scoured websites, google, and and social media for information about outdoor seating accommodations. Whatever information was available was exceedingly vague, despite it being a year into the pandemic when you'd think any savvy business owner would have information like that readily available. When restaurants had outdoor seating listed as available, most of them had seating fees and some insane minimum order requirements.
Fuck the restaurant industry.