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I never understood this meme. How would the state save money if those people sat at home instead of working at Walmart? How is it Walmart's fault that the minim

by aianus 10y ago

I never understood this meme. How would the state save money if those people sat at home instead of working at Walmart? How is it Walmart's fault that the minimum wage is so low and the regulations are written in such a way as to incentivize part-time labour over full-time labour? Hate the game, not the player.

paulmd 10y ago
Walmart gets a lot of heat but they actually do lobby for a higher minimum wage (which they believe will hurt their less-efficient competitors more than it does Walmart). And really, most retail and food-service companies are no better. With that said, it's certainly possible to run a retail store without totally screwing your employees. Costco is extremely profitable despite providing very high wages and good benefits, far better than Walmart's warehouse-club subsidiary Sams Club. At the end of the day Walmart is still making a choice to screw over their employees just because they can get away with it, regardless of if everyone else is doing it. Tu quoque is not a good defense.
- brudgers 10y ago
  Costco is primarily B2B. This allows it to have membership fees and to combine bulk purchase with retail. Here's the page for "pork": http://www.costco.com/pork.html http://www.costco.com/pork.html The least expensive item [in my browser] is ten pounds of bacon $6.50 per pound. A cash flow that allows allocating $19 to toilet paper is necessary to shop at Costco: http://www.costco.com/toilet-paper.html http://www.costco.com/toilet-paper.html The $100 shopping cart doesn't contain the diversity to cover fairly basic human needs, even ignoring the membership fee [I see $55 today].
- pbhjpbhj 10y ago
  Walmart are in profit aren't they? They don't need to lobby for a wage increase they can just give their employees one (as you intimated). If they're lobbying for higher minimum wage when they don't already pay a higher wage themselves then it seems their motives are malicious. It's not something that reflects well on them anyhow.
  - coredog64 10y ago
    Grocery stores are some of the lowest margin businesses in the US (on the order of 3%). Payroll is a pretty large expense, so it's not as if Walmart can just willy-nilly double salaries because the Waltons are extremely wealthy. If you were to wave a magic wand and redistribute the Waltons' gains to US employees, it would be something like $2000/year.

by aianus 10y ago

paulmd 10y ago

Walmart gets a lot of heat but they actually do lobby for a higher minimum wage (which they believe will hurt their less-efficient competitors more than it does Walmart). And really, most retail and food-service companies are no better. With that said, it's certainly possible to run a retail store without totally screwing your employees. Costco is extremely profitable despite providing very high wages and good benefits, far better than Walmart's warehouse-club subsidiary Sams Club. At the end of the day Walmart is still making a choice to screw over their employees just because they can get away with it, regardless of if everyone else is doing it. Tu quoque is not a good defense.

brudgers 10y ago
Costco is primarily B2B. This allows it to have membership fees and to combine bulk purchase with retail. Here's the page for "pork": http://www.costco.com/pork.html http://www.costco.com/pork.html The least expensive item [in my browser] is ten pounds of bacon $6.50 per pound. A cash flow that allows allocating $19 to toilet paper is necessary to shop at Costco: http://www.costco.com/toilet-paper.html http://www.costco.com/toilet-paper.html The $100 shopping cart doesn't contain the diversity to cover fairly basic human needs, even ignoring the membership fee [I see $55 today].
pbhjpbhj 10y ago
Walmart are in profit aren't they? They don't need to lobby for a wage increase they can just give their employees one (as you intimated). If they're lobbying for higher minimum wage when they don't already pay a higher wage themselves then it seems their motives are malicious. It's not something that reflects well on them anyhow.
- coredog64 10y ago
  Grocery stores are some of the lowest margin businesses in the US (on the order of 3%). Payroll is a pretty large expense, so it's not as if Walmart can just willy-nilly double salaries because the Waltons are extremely wealthy. If you were to wave a magic wand and redistribute the Waltons' gains to US employees, it would be something like $2000/year.