Who Needs Food, Anyway?

By

If you’re feeling fed up with recent political events, here’s one more straw to place very gently on your camel’s back. (If you need a break from outrage instead, here are some puppies.)

Instead of offering its employees a living wage, McDonald’s partnered with Visa to give workers ideas on how to scrape by. As Robyn Pennacchia points out, their sample budget requires a 74-hour work week and makes no allowances for food or gas.

It’s a surprisingly frightening way to visualize the realities of minimum-wage work: a cheerily presented list of numbers that don’t add up.


Lauren O'Neal is an MFA student at San Francisco State University. Her writing has appeared in publications like Slate, The New Inquiry, and The Hairpin. You can follow her on Twitter at @laureneoneal. More from this author →