McDonald's Seems to Be Begrudgingly Admitting Its Workers Are People

Remember that public clamor over unfair and borderline inhumane wage practices that resulted in a massive fast food strike in 2013? Well, contrary to what the cynical among us thought would be the case, it appears that it’s going to result in something positive after all.

Kicking and screaming, it looks like the execs at McDonald’s have realized they’re going to have to hike wages so that their employees can, y’know…actually afford to work there. After resisting the idea of paying their employees a living wage up to the point where it actually caused worker strikes all last year, SEC filings make it apparent that McDonald’s plans to raise wages.

Ultimately, this was inevitable. It just wasn’t sustainable to pay people at the rates McDonald’s and other fast food giants had been doing and not expect the whole house of cards to come tumbling down eventually. This is particularly true when you consider the crazy shit McDonald’s has recommended its employees do just to survive. We all know about the hotline caught telling employees to go on Food Stamps, but not as many people know about the fact that the same hotline was also recommending employees “break their food into smaller pieces to feel full” (HOW DOES THAT EVEN, I CAN’T WORDS) along with telling them that they should survive by selling all their worldly possessions on E-Bay and Craigslist and telling them to “quit complaining” (no, seriously) because “complaining raises stress hormone levels.”

At what point do we as a nation have to admit that we’re turning into Dickensian London with iPads? The fact that anyone believes that it is right and just for full-time workers to not be able to survive modestly, or that the solution to poverty is “if you’re poor, stop being poor,” or that owning a refrigerator or a cellphone or air conditioning means you’re secretly not actually poor is so depressing that George R. R. Martin has to tip his cap to Republicans for their inventive cruelty.