McDonald's Jobs: Drive-Thru, Not Dead End

A sample budget put together by Visa Inc. and McDonald's Corp. is rocketing around the Internet. Most of the commentary suggests that McDonald's is heartless, and gauche, to suggest how its employees might live on the embarrassingly paltry wages that they are paid. (According to the Census Bureau's American Community Survey of 2009-11, median earnings for a fast-food worker were $18,564 a year.) The budget is based on two jobs, which has aroused special ire: Is McDonald's telling its employees to get a second job so they don’t have to pay them anything?