A Call For Reason and The Strike for 15

I am never going to get to cover Syria if this shit keeps happening. So tomorrow my favorite pointless

would you pay these guys 15 an hour?

cause the "Strike of 15" is staging a walkout all over the country. Or so they claim. Well lets just examine one of the poor victims of the evil fast food industry that for some reason I am supposed to feel sorry for. I will take quotes out of the article I linked and then comment on them.

Shaniqua Davis, 20, lives in the Bronx with her boyfriend, who is unemployed, and their 1-year-old daughter. Davis has worked at a McDonald's a few blocks from her apartment for the past three months, earning $7.25 an hour. Her schedule varies, but she never gets close to 40 hours a week.

Why did she have a child at 19 with her unemployed boyfriend when her only opportunity to raise the child was on the wages earned at McDonald's. Birth control is cheaper than raising a daughter. She seems to feel that it is McDonald's fault that she doesn't have enough to raise her child.

 She pays the rent with public assistance but struggles to afford food, diapers, subway and taxi fares, cable TV and other expenses with her paycheck.

Yes you read that correctly. She pays her rent with public assistance but struggles to afford a list that includes cable TV, which in New York is at least 100 a month, and taxi fares. I don't have cable or take taxis because they are not worth the price why can't she do the same? 

I have a real hard time feeling bad for this person. Sure she probably came from a difficult starting point in life but she clearly could have and could continue to make better choices. Simply cutting the cable and kicking out the deadbeat boyfriend would go a long way to making her life easier. 

I believe that anyone who is willing to put in 30 hours a week of work, 30 hours being what should be considered the new full time, should have 20,000 dollars a year minimum. No income tax or anything like that. If they make less than 20,000 they would get a refund to make up the difference. For example if someone works 30 hours a week for 9 dollars an hour they would receive a negative income tax equal to 5,960 dollars giving them an income of 20,000 a year. This is all they get. No public assistance or food stamps. They have to make a go of it with what they have. (editors note: the plan also calls for single payer health care)

I am just saying that these jobs are not worth 30,000 dollars a year. Yes it is a struggle to make ends meet on these wages. Yes people who are willing to put in the work should have things a bit easier. However for the love of all that is reasonable can't we ask that people make better decisions with their lives and if they don't that is their problem?