U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris has repeatedly claimed that she worked at McDonald’s while getting her undergraduate degree in the 1980s. This claim has been reported by multiple reputable news outlets, but aside from Harris’ own testimony, there is no independent evidence such as a photo, employment record, or confirmation from a friend or family member to verify the story. Harris has invoked the alleged McDonald’s work experience throughout her political career, including in a 2024 presidential campaign ad and during a 2024 appearance on “The Drew Barrymore Show.” Other prominent Democrats, such as former President Bill Clinton, have also repeated the anecdote. However, some internet users have challenged the claim, with unverified reports that “McDonald’s Corporate sources” have no record of Harris working at their locations. Snopes reached out to Harris’ campaign and McDonald’s headquarters seeking evidence to corroborate the claim, but as of the report’s publication, no such proof has been uncovered. Without tangible evidence to independently confirm or debunk the story, Snopes has rated the claim “Research In Progress” as they continue to investigate.
Can they actually prove anyone worked at McDonalds that long ago? Aside from saving a pay stub for 40 years I don’t see how one could prove or disprove such a thing, I doubt the company keeps records of every employee that far back.
She could have worked for a franchisee, too. If that was the case, a SMB owner is definitely not going to have those records after all this time
Assuming that franchise is still even open. How long does the US gov hold onto tax returns? The IRS says there’s usually no need to keep them after 6 years. The best evidence they could find would probably be a coworker that corroborates the story or a photograph of Harris behind the counter working. The photo seems unlikely, and how many coworkers from 30 years ago do you remember?
The Social Security Administration has a record of every employer that’s ever paid you and how much they paid you each year.
They have to for paying out social security.
one year on and the documents about my employment history have not yet been received. (want to re-iterate that i just applied for a copy of my work history including earnings and employer name, i’m not applying to get an SSN or for benefits). DOGE took a hammer to the SSA so sadly this delay isn’t unexpected… but definitely worth re-iterating that if this could have helped Harris, it wouldn’t have been possible for these to come in time.
just posting the one year follow up to this in case anyone is still watching (or in the future if someone wants to try what i did - in the latter case, to follow for further updates, go to https://fedia.io/m/AmerExit/t/2379602/Australian-Computer-Society-assessment )
it also points to the following possibility to do things better in the future - right now presidential candidates (with the one stupid exception) are generally seen as needing to comply with the norm of releasing their tax returns from the IRS.
perhaps going forward, it would be best if presidential and vice presidential candidates should also apply for and obtain their employment history from the SSA. since getting a campaign set up usually starts a couple of years early, this would mean that the required documents are available before the election is held. (likewise, even in a re-election year, perhaps a primary should always be held anyways, to make sure that the president and VP are in fact re-electable.)
edit: someone who wanted to remain anonymous DM’d me about this, and i thought a couple of items were worth addressing publicly.
point one - did the OC (original commenter who i responded to, basically the thread starter) lie about being able to get history from the SSA?
after all, you can’t. from the online link, https://secure.ssa.gov/ec2/eligibility-earnings-ui/earnings-record , you can only see earnings but not employer name. for the non-americans among us, here are publicly available screenshots of what this looks like, https://www.socialsecurityintelligence.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/earningsrecord.jpg.webp & https://ssa.tools/calculator & https://www.reddit.com/r/SocialSecurity/comments/l45u64/earnings_record_problem/
but, this is quite a serious claim, and thus would require serious evidence. Both Occam’s and Halon’s razor require us to consider alternative explanations first.
i don’t know why !givesomefucks@lemmy.world @givesomefucks@lemmy.world has never responded to this, but this person does deserve the benefit of the doubt here. elsewhere, see https://lemmy.world/comment/12783783 , the OC claims to be a disabled veteran. i can’t rule out that, at least pre-DOGE, there was a view on SSA’s website where you could see these docs if you were either disabled, a veteran, or both. since the OC can’t change the status of the OC (can’t click a button and say you’re no longer a veteran, for example), the OC might have had no way of knowing that for nonveteran and nondisabled folks the SSA doesn’t provide the same documents. (unless the SSA had big red text on the front of the page saying “THIS IS ONLY AVAILABLE IF YOU ARE A DISABLED VETERAN” which seems unlikely to me in the extreme.)
most likely this would have taken the form of submitting supporting documents to prove one is disabled or a vet (or a disabled vet if both are required) which would have included sending a copy of docs from your old employers/ this might have a relatively short time after the OC left McDonalds (say less than seven years post-leaving), and thus copies the records were still easily obtainable from banks and the IRS.
the softer version here is that the OC is still being honest but make an unintentional mistake and obtained the history from the Dept. of Vet. Affairs website or something instead of from the SSA, and simply got the specific gov’t agency wrong.
finally, i can’t rule out that due to some SSA website glitch, the OC was able to see employer name and all that from https://secure.ssa.gov/ec2/eligibility-earnings-ui/earnings-record despite it officially not being possible (even in the pre-DOGE days).
point two - isn’t the OC showing an anti-Harris bias here, by lying and claiming that it was easy for Harris to get proof of working at McDonalds from the SSA when it isn’t?
another serious claim that requires serious evidence. in fact, i’d say that can’t be the case unless the OC was knowingly lying about that point. rather, if the OC was truthful or at least unintentionally mistaken, then there’s a different and more reasonable explanation.
we need to hold our leaders and politicians to account. if they say something untruthful, it needs to be called out immediately. so - provided that the OC believed that the statements were truthful - the OC was simply performing a necessary civic duty here.
it was just a shame that, since Harris is neither disabled or a veteran, she likely wouldn’t have been able to obtain the proof quickly like the OC did.
10 months isn’t a year champ…
Thanks for the callout and enjoy your upvote!
Counting back from today, I applied to SSA for my work history over a year ago plus change. Then the snopes article that lead to this thread came about a few months later… (but the confusion is understandable and reasonable as I was and still am being deliberately vague on the exact timeline).
So I actually tried this recently. Everything is done by paper and mail - even though I visited the office in person, they just mail it onwards.
Also, despite having an expected turnaround of six months officially, it turns out that wait times of multiple years are not uncommon once the request is submitted. So even if Harris submitted a request right now the election would be long over before she would have a copy of the records to prove it either way.
You’re talking about applying.
I’m talking about getting your work history.
Can be done in pretty much the time it takes to sign into the website.
… for my work history.
Specifically, using SSA-7050-F4, https://www.ssa.gov/forms/ssa-7050.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9TwOUSn34I
Yes, me too!
Err, so from https://www.ssa.gov/forms/ssa-7050.html
I.e. you can create the account and view the info online pretty quick but it won’t have the proof that you worked at McD back in the 80s or 90s.
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I can’t think of any way how I could proof the first job I had during school in the late 90’s. I was working in a restaurant kitchen, peeling potatoes and stuff. You don’t take photos there or keep name tags or other keepsakes. It was a shitty job, you want to forget about it, as soon as you left the premises.
Kamala Harris’ job is even longer ago. 40 years is a long time to keep paystubs or something. There were no camera phones back then, no digital footprint you could recreate. That she can’t produce any proof, doesn’t proof anything.
Social security records.
90s is nothing, a normal person could get it in a month, one of her aids could probably get it in an hour.
Does it matter tho?
Eh, it would be fucked up if she just flat out lied, but it’s hard to imagine she would lie about that.
If she proves it tho, they’ll make a new stupid claim and if she doesn’t prove it they’ll use this as evidence that she would prove it if it wasn’t true.
How to know when OP is unhinged and divisive:
People are agreeing with givesomefucks, who often gets down voted for unpopular views.
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Damn, you aren’t wrong!
It’s like when people think that them walking by causing street lights to go out.
We’re pattern recognition machines, and we have certain biases. People don’t notice all the streetlights that are working, just the ones that flicker. Either it happens right next to you, or you don’t notice.
Chances are you’re only looking at usernames when it’s really down voted. With the rare exception this time.
I bet if your scrolled thru my post history, you’ve up voted me more than youve down voted me.
Seems pretty ridiculous to judge the validity of an argument based on whether people agree with a particular commenter or not.
Ideas should be evaluated on their own merit, not dismissed because of who supports or opposes them.
This kind of thinking only stifles discussion and perpetuates division, which is exactly what we should be avoiding if we’re serious about finding solutions. Let’s focus on the content of the conversation, not the personalities involved.
I tried this and it takes ages. I applied back on July 1st and haven’t heard a peep yet - apparently this can take many months or sometimes even years.
Man, you know what?
I was wrong.
I’m used to having to get other people’s records, to look up my own back to my first highschool job, took literally less than five minutes.
Coincidentally, it was also a McDonald’s.
Try it yourself. Ssa.gov
Well, that’s not what anyone was talking about about…
As clarification, I applied for the SSA-7050-F4 ( that is https://www.ssa.gov/forms/ssa-7050.html ) in order to get my detailed earnings and employment history, and following this video as a guide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SH8H9U-SIs8
Considering what the thread was about - what did you think I said I had applied for? I’m genuinely curious now - as per https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/flyers/EBE_Flyer_Apply_for_your_Social_Security_Number_While_Applying_for_Your.pdf it takes just two weeks after applying for the SSN / SSN card itself to get it, while actually applying for benefits takes 3-5 months as per https://finance.yahoo.com/news/social-security-benefits-long-does-180014897.html (which is ridiculously long but still not as bad as a year long wait).
Dang where were you two months ago lol - can you talk me through this? If I can pull down a record of who I worked for from their online website then this would be a really big help for me for personal reasons.
I did but couldn’t find it - only saw my yearly and monthly earnings totals.
Also, and possibly more importantly…
…WHo FuKinG CArES?!?
60 comments in this thread. And snopes looking it up. So seems some people do.
Shit!
She coulda had @UniversalMonk@lemmy.world’s vote if only she [had|hadn’t] worked at McDonald’s
😞😭
Ah, the arrogance of the establishment!
See this brothers and sisters?! They think that by mocking and belittling those who dare to challenge their broken system, they can shame us into submission.
But they forget that ridicule only fuels the fire of our resolve.
Keep sneering, if you must, but know that every insult you hurl only strengthens our determination to stand against your candidate and the corrupt system they uphold.
How many people do ya think will change their minds and start voting for your candidate if you keep mocking and making fun of them? Hmmmm?
Gosh. I’m such an asshole…
I wouldn’t call you that, as I respect everyone’s right to their opinions.
But it’s hard to take someone seriously when they resort to mocking and belittling others to make their point.
There’s a better way to have these discussions, one that doesn’t rely on tearing others down.
I’m sorry my crass comment made you feel belittled.
What can I do to make it up to you?
No need for apologies or making it up to me. I’m more interested in a genuine conversation where we respect each other’s views, even if we don’t agree. Sarcasm doesn’t really add much to that.