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Redistributing Walmart's store managers wealth is a really poor example when you don't even look at executive salaries or dividends. > The problem is fundament

Redistributing Walmart's store managers wealth is a really poor example when you don't even look at executive salaries or dividends. > The problem is fundamentally this: A typical Wal-Mart store has around 300 employees. If you take the manager's entire $100,000 and distribute it to the employees, they each get less than $500/year, a raise of less than $0.25/hour. Walmart has 2,867,125,000 shares outstanding * $1.96 per quarter * 4 = $22,478,260,000 per year spent on dividends alone. If you take all that money and give it to the 2.1 million employees listed that comes to $10,703 a year in additional wages alone. I haven't even looked at executive salaries or the costs from lawsuits Walmart gets from it's shady tactics. Or that many employees are part time and the per hour wage increase would be much higher than it indicates. > And nice as it would be to pay all 300 employees $100K/year, that would immediately bankrupt the store. Moreover, it would be more than the amount it would cost to automate most of those jobs. No one is asking Walmart to pay a bagger 100k a year. Most people are asking a decent wage for where they live. For most places that is $15 an hour... $30k a year. In California that is more. If Walmart can't pay that then maybe they deserve to fail and Costco, which does pay well and comply with the law, can take their place. Compared to Microsoft or Apple, which can easily afford to pay the contract labor they use in place of union janitors, technicians, drivers, etc. Despite their margins they still use it and those people live in poverty because of it. Walmart overall is a poor example as they push lower costs at every level including using dubious or illegal tactics. Certain property tax strategies, pressuring employees to work on unrecorded hours, pushing manufacturers to low cost sweat shops overseas. These costs don't show up in people's wages, the products they buy, or a company's 10-k. They show up in the quality of life in our towns, the unemployment rate, and the budgets of our governments. Microsoft, Apple, Wall Street banks, even McDonalds is a better example. (McDonalds operating margin is 42% compared to Walmart's 3.34%. Source: MSN Money.)

balfirevic 7y ago
> Walmart has 2,867,125,000 shares outstanding * $1.96 per quarter * 4 = $22,478,260,000 per year spent on dividends alone. Where did you get those dividend values? According to this [0], annual dividend was $2,08 per share for fiscal year 2019. [0] - https://news.walmart.com/2019/02/19/walmart-raises-annual-dividend-to-212-per-share-marking-46th-consecutive-year-of-dividend-increases https://news.walmart.com/2019/02/19/walmart-raises-annual-di...
- csdreamer7 7y ago
  You are right. Misread MSN Money. Google Finance by default shows quarterly, but G Finance is terrible now. MSN Money by default shows annual.
AnthonyMouse 7y ago
> Walmart has 2,867,125,000 shares outstanding * $1.96 per quarter * 4 = $22,478,260,000 per year spent on dividends alone. Their quarterly dividend is ~$0.53/share: https://stock.walmart.com/investors/stock-information/dividend-history/default.aspx https://stock.walmart.com/investors/stock-information/divide... Moreover, let's suppose you take that entire amount and give it to the employees. Then the company has zero ROI and the stock value drops to the level that it's profitable for corporate raiders to buy the company to liquidate its real estate holdings etc., and everyone loses their jobs. Shareholders get paid because they invested money. You can't avoid paying them market rates unless you can operate without capital. Somebody has to pay for the land the store sits on and the trucks that deliver the goods. They have to get a return if you want to get an investment. > I haven't even looked at executive salaries or the costs from lawsuits Walmart gets from it's shady tactics. The numbers for top level executives will be even less valuable than for store managers, because they get paid hundreds of times more money but have ten thousand times more employees under them. > If Walmart can't pay that then maybe they deserve to fail and Costco, which does pay well and comply with the law, can take their place. Costco can't replace Walmart because Walmart customers can't afford membership fees and bulk purchases, or they would already buy at Costco. The thing that replaces Walmart is dollar stores. That is not an improvement for anybody. > Compared to Microsoft or Apple, which can easily afford to pay the contract labor they use in place of union janitors, technicians, drivers, etc. Despite their margins they still use it and those people live in poverty because of it. Those people live in poverty because the cost of necessities is high compared to the value of unskilled labor. If janitors at other companies make $8/hour, Microsoft isn't going to pay more just because they have more money. To improve the lives of those people, what you need is either more demand for labor or more supply (i.e. lower prices) for necessities. > Microsoft, Apple, Wall Street banks, even McDonalds is a better example. None of these companies are good examples because they're all titans. The large majority of people work for small and medium businesses with low margins. Setting policy based on Apple and McDonalds is exactly how you get policies that only work for Apple and McDonalds. You destroy the small businesses that actually employ people and drive the demand for labor while you increase corporate profits and consumer prices from the lack of competition. Forget about punishing Walmart and McDonalds. Figure out how to make it easier for the family owned corner store to better compete with them. Figure out how to reduce housing and education costs.

balfirevic 7y ago

> Walmart has 2,867,125,000 shares outstanding * $1.96 per quarter * 4 = $22,478,260,000 per year spent on dividends alone. Where did you get those dividend values? According to this [0], annual dividend was $2,08 per share for fiscal year 2019. [0] - https://news.walmart.com/2019/02/19/walmart-raises-annual-dividend-to-212-per-share-marking-46th-consecutive-year-of-dividend-increases https://news.walmart.com/2019/02/19/walmart-raises-annual-di...

csdreamer7 7y ago
You are right. Misread MSN Money. Google Finance by default shows quarterly, but G Finance is terrible now. MSN Money by default shows annual.

AnthonyMouse 7y ago

> Walmart has 2,867,125,000 shares outstanding * $1.96 per quarter * 4 = $22,478,260,000 per year spent on dividends alone. Their quarterly dividend is ~$0.53/share: https://stock.walmart.com/investors/stock-information/dividend-history/default.aspx https://stock.walmart.com/investors/stock-information/divide... Moreover, let's suppose you take that entire amount and give it to the employees. Then the company has zero ROI and the stock value drops to the level that it's profitable for corporate raiders to buy the company to liquidate its real estate holdings etc., and everyone loses their jobs. Shareholders get paid because they invested money. You can't avoid paying them market rates unless you can operate without capital. Somebody has to pay for the land the store sits on and the trucks that deliver the goods. They have to get a return if you want to get an investment. > I haven't even looked at executive salaries or the costs from lawsuits Walmart gets from it's shady tactics. The numbers for top level executives will be even less valuable than for store managers, because they get paid hundreds of times more money but have ten thousand times more employees under them. > If Walmart can't pay that then maybe they deserve to fail and Costco, which does pay well and comply with the law, can take their place. Costco can't replace Walmart because Walmart customers can't afford membership fees and bulk purchases, or they would already buy at Costco. The thing that replaces Walmart is dollar stores. That is not an improvement for anybody. > Compared to Microsoft or Apple, which can easily afford to pay the contract labor they use in place of union janitors, technicians, drivers, etc. Despite their margins they still use it and those people live in poverty because of it. Those people live in poverty because the cost of necessities is high compared to the value of unskilled labor. If janitors at other companies make $8/hour, Microsoft isn't going to pay more just because they have more money. To improve the lives of those people, what you need is either more demand for labor or more supply (i.e. lower prices) for necessities. > Microsoft, Apple, Wall Street banks, even McDonalds is a better example. None of these companies are good examples because they're all titans. The large majority of people work for small and medium businesses with low margins. Setting policy based on Apple and McDonalds is exactly how you get policies that only work for Apple and McDonalds. You destroy the small businesses that actually employ people and drive the demand for labor while you increase corporate profits and consumer prices from the lack of competition. Forget about punishing Walmart and McDonalds. Figure out how to make it easier for the family owned corner store to better compete with them. Figure out how to reduce housing and education costs.