Media

Last Thursday, while fast food workers walked out on strike across the US and around the world, another group of stakeholders in the industry was making a similarly direct statement about the way these companies do business.

We need a return to valuing equity in higher education.

Activists want to put the brakes on CEO Don Thompson's multimillion dollar pay package. Health advocates are petitioning LeBron James to stop peddling McDonald's junk food to kids. 

And, hundreds of fast-food workers are expected to protest for higher wages, starting a day before the meeting. All of this is happening as McDonald's is fighting a slump in sales. [...]

Here's a piece of good news in the fight to raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour: Walmart's U.S. president, Bill Simon, said last week that the nation's largest employer, will not oppose such an increase. 

In a 2006 “Saturday Night Live” sketch, Chris Parnell sums up the conventional wisdom about credit card debt:

“Did you know millions of Americans live with debt they can not control? That’s why I’ve developed this unique new program for managing your debt. It’s called, Don’t Buy Stuff You Can’t Afford.”

When failed Republican presidential candidate and multimillionaire asset-stripper Mitt Romney said this week that he supported an increase in the minimum federal wage to US$10.10 ($11.63), as advocated by President Barack Obama, you knew the sounds of discontent from America's growing underclass must have penetrated the hallowed sanctuaries of the very rich. Not that Obama's proposal, the Minimum Wage Fairness Act, went anywhere. It was blocked by Senate Republicans last month and the wage remains at US$7.25 an hour.

Danielle can't afford to give her 3-year-old son gifts on holidays and birthdays. Munira Edens broke her phone three months ago and now goes without one because a repair is too costly. The eldest of six, James Moore tries to help his mother pay household expenses but often can't, because he makes just $150 a week.

At $9.85 an hour, 25-year-old Terran Lyons supports herself and two kids as a crew trainer at a McDonald’s in Seattle’s university district. That’s a jump from the $9.19 an hour the high school dropout got when she started, and a step above the state’s $9.32 minimum wage. But it’s hardly enough to be self-sufficient. Lyons is on food stamps. She wouldn’t even be able to afford a Big Mac if it weren’t for the 50 percent employee discount.

On May 1, the White House released a 90 day review studying the effects of big data and privacy, led by Obama's Counsel, John Podesta. The review, which can be found here, and a summary of it, here, also focuses on big data’s potential for discrimination.