...that fast food employees have been led to believe that their jobs should provide "a living wage". Unfortunately, there is no reason for a no-skill position to be accompanied by a "living wage" - first of all, fast food employees are among the most easily replaceable workers in the workforce, and secondly, the fast food business model simply will not support paying the employees a "living wage." It's low-quality food, so if the price gets raised high enough, customers will simply not eat fast food, which would destroy businesses and wipe out jobs altogether. So, this new idea that fast food workers should get tips is really the only way to bridge the gap. In reality, we should be encouraging young people to take education seriously and to not settle for a dead-end job. A 20-year-old can get by on fast food wages...but that's not a job that can sustain the needs of a mature adult, particularly someone with one or more children. Unfortunately, our culture seems destined to churn out more and more young people who lack the drive to develop skills that will lead to good-paying jobs that will actually support a family. We seem determined to legalize drug use in order to reduce the number of incarcerations, which is absolutely affecting the performance of low-wage workers and virtually trapping them in their lifestyle of barely scraping by. Just yesterday I read the op/ed below about how awful the food service has gotten in New York City as a result of the legalization of marijuana. As far as I'm concerned, increasing access to drugs is not a good path for our country to be headed down.