If Walmart Paid Its Employees a Living Wage

[NobleSavage]

 

[Underseer]

That's why you should never get your information from biased sources, especially not biased sources that are communist-fascists who hate freedom. I checked this out with non-biased sources, and that box of Mac and Cheese would cost $4,205 per box if we paid those Wal-Mart employees a "living wage."

What is this "living wage" nonsense anyway? I am currently raising a family of 5 on a salary of $17,000 per year, and I still have enough money leftover to support my meth habit. Why would someone making $20,000 and only one dependent need government assistance at all?

Why do people even fall for these obvious lies from the communists?

 

[rousseau]

1.3% of Mac and Cheese is a few pennies. 1.3% of 200 dollars 40 times a year times every Walmart shopper in America is quite a bit more. I'm holding out on this one until they present their own counter-argument.

 

[Bronzeage]

1.3% of Mac and Cheese is a few pennies. 1.3% of 200 dollars 40 times a year times every Walmart shopper in America is quite a bit more. I'm holding out on this one until they present their own counter-argument.

I don't know Walmart's counter argument. It's probably something along the lines of, "Your not the boss of me." I do know Walmart's business strategy ever since the original Walton died, has been to capture market share by reducing prices. The way they do this and maintain profits is really simple. They are big enough to to consume every bit of of a producers capacity. All that stuff labeled "Great Value is made by someone. Walmart owns no factories or food processors. Once they have a producer working at full capacity, and is their only customer, they go to the company owners and say, "We want to increase our order for next year, but we want it for 20% less. The producer has the choice of cutting costs and reducing profits, to keep the contract, or go out of business.

Walmart's low buck pay plan is true trickle down economics. Their cheap macaroni and cheese has cost the livelihood of more than the stock clerk and the cashier at Walmart. It probably hits everybody in the supply chain, all the way back to the wheat farmer and the dairy owner.

What Walmart gets out of this is higher profits through greater market share. Walmart has no problem moving into a rural area and building their big store. Local home owned stores cannot hope to compete, so they either close or go under in a year or so. If Walmart discovers the population of the area is simply not enough people to maintain the sales volumes needed to pay the bills, they shut it down. Of course, the local family owned stores are long gone. There are plenty of derelict Walmarts across the country.

 

[dockeen]

There are plenty of derelict Walmarts across the country.

I remember I used to wonder about that, it seemed strange they would open just to move out later. Now I understand.

For several years, my son went to school in a building that used to be at Walmart.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I've seen this before. They are using Swiss cheese math. Going from memory the things I noted when I first saw this:

1) They are neglecting the raises that would go to people who aren't getting benefits.

2) They are assuming that those who get benefits are the same as those who don't--while it would be reasonable to suspect that those who get benefits average less work time.

3) They neglect the ripple effect up the pay scale. They're raising a bunch of people over their supervisors, that's not going to work. In practice that's still more raises needed.

4) There's no reason to single Wal-Mart out here (actually, it's singled out because the left hates it's anti-union stance, not because it's actually paying less than other places.) If that's an appropriate minimum wage then it's an appropriate minimum wage across the board. Costs go still higher.

I think there was more but I'm not going to bother to rewatch it now.

 

[Toni]

I'd be really interested in the particulars of your version of the math, Loren.

I question your point 2) in particular or maybe I'm just not reading it correctly. Generally speaking, full time employees work more hours than part time employees. Full time employees are typically eligible for benefits while part time employees typically are not. You seem to be saying that employees with benefits work fewer hours. Or perhaps you mean they don't work as well--those benefits make them less productive. Or perhaps you are referring to the fact that part time employees often cobble together a living out of two or three and occasionally more jobs, just to make ends meet.

As far as raising people above their supervisors: That doesn't follow and so what? As it happens, I know that I am paid more than my immediate supervisor but that is due to a vagary in the pay structure and job classification/degree structure of my company. He is still my supervisor, is still entitled to my respect and entitled to have me report to him and perform tasks and projects as assigned. Now, I think the company is wrong in this particular instance to pay him less than I am paid as he is clearly worth far more than I am. However, it is a large company with a fairly rigid structure.

I hate Walmart because I consider it to be a destructive cancer for precisely the reasons others have already mentioned: They engage in predatory pricing, underpay and abuse employees who have few other options, drive out locally owned businesses who are unable to compete with Walmart's vast bulk purchasing power and whenever they decide a store isn't sufficiently profitable, they simply abandon it, contributing further to blight in the community they have cannibalized.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I'd be really interested in the particulars of your version of the math, Loren.

I question your point 2) in particular or maybe I'm just not reading it correctly. Generally speaking, full time employees work more hours than part time employees. Full time employees are typically eligible for benefits while part time employees typically are not. You seem to be saying that employees with benefits work fewer hours. Or perhaps you mean they don't work as well--those benefits make them less productive. Or perhaps you are referring to the fact that part time employees often cobble together a living out of two or three and occasionally more jobs, just to make ends meet.

Consider the context. "Benefits" = "welfare benefits".