News

McDonald's budgeting tool faces criticism

July 16, 2013

McDonald's has teamed up with Visa to include its Practical Money Skills information online at practicalmoneyskills/com/mcdonalds. The website includes guides, videos, calculators, resources, games and more.

There is also a downloadeable budget journal available with the McDonald's and Visa logos featured.

The Practical Money Skills website says it was created in 2010 and "does not promote the use of any specific brands of savings, credit or debit products." Its "product is information, plain and simple."

The site has generated some controversy this week as minimum wage employees in various states fight for higher paychecks. The Huffington Post reported that the group Low Pay is Not OK claims there are "disturbing assumptions and omissions" from the sample employee budget featured on the Practical Money Skills' site.

Low Pay is Not OK writes:

"To start, the tool assumes that employees using it will have to cobble together incomes from at least two jobs to earn a little more than $24,500 per year —what the budget claims it takes to make ends meet. That translates to roughly $12.80 per hour after taxes, assuming a 40-hour work week, which Low Pay Is Not OK claims is far more than the $7 to $8 an hour that most fast-food workers make."

Read more about staffing and training.