A website that offers personal wellness tips for McDonald's employees has come under fire for urging fast-food workers to lower stress by "taking at least two vacations a year," which some say is impossible to do on such low wages.
"We make $7.25 an hour,"
Jeanette Lynn, a 26-year-old McDonald's worker in Durham, N.C., told the Huffington Post. "Why in the world would we take vacation if we already aren't getting paid enough?"
The McResource Line claims to offer helpful advice on how employees can eat healthier, manage stress, lower their debt, and get enough sleep.
But some of the tips are ridiculous, according to Low Pay Is Not OK, a protest group that published a video on the "clueless tips."
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Here are some other bits of insensitive advice from McDonald's to its employees, some of whom are struggling to make ends meet and must rely on government assistance programs like food stamps:
"Quit complaining."
"Breaking food into pieces often results in eating less and still feeling full."
"Sell your some of your possessions on eBay or Craigslist."
This isn't the first time McDonald's advice has led to outrage. In July,
the fast-food company released a "Practical Money Skills Budget Journal" for employees, but the online tool only made it glaringly obvious
"how impossible it is to scrape by on a fast-food paycheck," The Atlantic's Jordan Weissmann noted.
For example, the budget worksheet assumes that a worker has two full-time jobs.
"Once the employee is working 75 to 80 hours a week, it’s a
relatively simple matter of budgeting," The Daily Beast's Daniel Gross writes. "Some of the lines sound reasonable: $600 a month for rent, $100 a month for car and home insurance, $100 a month for cable and phone. But some of the suggestions are banoodles. Presumably these employees must all live in Hawaii, because the suggested monthly cost of heating is... zero. The line for health care is $20 a month, which is enough to pay for a bottle of aspirin — and a couple of days of health-insurance coverage each month."
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