How much should a Wal-Mart worker make, and how do you get them to make it?

[Craig234]

Should a Wal-Mart maker make:

- nothing
- starvation wages
- below minimum wage
- minimum wage
- $10/hour
- $15/hour
- $25/hour
- $40/hour

Now, I'm not looking for a simplistic spewing of dogma about 'the free market decides'. How much do you think they deserve to make, apart from the 'free market' blather?

For the sake of this discussion, let's pick $25/hour, an upgrade from where they are.

Can that happen?

The Wal-Mart heirs are the richest family in the world, apparently. Nearly $200 billion apparently. They COULD pay workers that overnight if they wanted. But they won't, and probably shouldn't.

Here's where the armchair capitalists have a point. The 'system' matters. If the heirs simply paid that wage, and you saw Wal-Mart an outlier in paying more than other retailers, it could become a money-losing business, that didn't 'fit' the market. Essentially a charity operation. It doesn't 'work'.

No, the heirs have more money than they should, but the way to address that is taxation, not demands for paying workers 'well above market'.

To 'fix' Wal-Mart worker pay, to raise, it, needs fixing the system. And a main question is, where will the money come from, and how can the system change to pay workers more, and how can it be done across the industry?

That's where *systemic* issues like unions come in as one part of the answer. If the money simply isn't there, the wages won't happen. But what about when the money IS there, but the system just chooses not to pay workers much, and the money goes to executives and/or owners/stockholders?

If the company goes from making $40/worker to $75 to $100 to $200 to $500, what decides whether the workers gets any of that increase? I don't mean a technical answer - the company decided - I mean what factors affect the decision? And those factors are largely 'the system'. From tax policy to worker power.

And that's where what the issue comes down to is, basically, are the rules set up to serve the workers, the workers and owners, or the owners?

When they're set up for the owners, you see the workers keep making minimal wages, while the owners get all the increases, and great wealth. When they're set up with workers having some representation, the workers will get a larger share.

Competition will essentially always put a cap on the wages, outside of the government running things and setting wages other than the minimum, which has almost no chance of happening. If Wal-Mart just paid workers a lot and raised prices to pay for it, competition would sell for less and get the customers, and Wal-Mart would go bankrupt.

As a society, we can choose whether the system should represent workers almost not at all, or more. We can tax great wealth or not (or, as we do, undertax it so much our debt skyrockets every year). We can give workers some power across the industry, so there might be some price increases, but workers would make more.

Instead, society basically 'doesn't care', doesn't pay attention to the issue, and lets the owners have it their way. There are still some occasional pressures, and some changes; Wal-Mart pay has sometimes gone from very low to a bit less low.

But if we want to see 'hard work rewarded', if we want to see 'the American dream' happen more, we need to elect government that will create a system, including tax policies, that have a larger share of the wealth the company creates go to workers, and not practically all to owners/shareholders.

It's sort of that simple. It won't happen by blaming individuals like CEOs and boards and owners - the system doesn't leave them much room to do anything on their own, with competition waiting to crush them for it. It starts with voters understanding the issue and preferring to respect workers more, and that creates a demand for politicians who will, and they get elected.

And that needs voters not to be suckers for corporatist propaganda to oppose such changes, and that says nearly all the wealth going to the top is great. That 'Plutocratic Capitalism' is worse than 'Democratic Capitalism'.

These changes wouldn't be 'socialism', they wouldn't bankrupt companies, they can't make money out of thin air. But they could reduce the extreme seizure of the wealth created by the top, and have it go more to workers, and the rest of the country in taxes, even while the owners still get rich, but not as rich. And society tends to thrive more.

 

[swing_voter]

Walmart is a tremendous boon to poor people. Poor people save hundreds of dollars a month shopping there, the prices are cheap.

How much money can a store make when it sells to poor people?

 

[jimbo]

Whatever the seller of a job (Walmart) and the buyer of a job(Employee) agree on. Government needs to stay out of it.

Free market considerations arr not blather.

 

[Captain Adverse]

Should a Wal-Mart maker make?...

Whatever the fair market value of their labor is worth. :shrug:

Now the problem with places like Wal-Mart is that they try to make the utmost profit with the very least expense.

That's why they use Chinese (and perhaps other overseas) labor, where population density allows for extremely minimal wages. Such that the other costs to ship, etc. are affordable.

But when the product comes to the USA for sale in their "warehouse" stores? That's where the big expenses accrue. Energy costs, OSHA requirements, building maintenance, taxes, and of course wages.

The more they have to pay to get the product sold, the greater the increase in prices to cover those costs and still give them their expected profits.

I do support buy American, work American, but have yet to hear exactly how laws can balance these cost-benefit equations.

 

[Simpletruther]

Should a Wal-Mart maker make:

- nothing
- starvation wages
- below minimum wage
- minimum wage
- $10/hour
- $15/hour
- $25/hour
- $40/hour

Now, I'm not looking for a simplistic spewing of dogma about 'the free market decides'. How much do you think they deserve to make, apart from the 'free market' blather?

For the sake of this discussion, let's pick $25/hour, an upgrade from where they are.

Can that happen?

The Wal-Mart heirs are the richest family in the world, apparently. Nearly $200 billion apparently. They COULD pay workers that overnight if they wanted. But they won't, and probably shouldn't.

Here's where the armchair capitalists have a point. The 'system' matters. If the heirs simply paid that wage, and you saw Wal-Mart an outlier in paying more than other retailers, it could become a money-losing business, that didn't 'fit' the market. Essentially a charity operation. It doesn't 'work'.

No, the heirs have more money than they should, but the way to address that is taxation, not demands for paying workers 'well above market'.

To 'fix' Wal-Mart worker pay, to raise, it, needs fixing the system. And a main question is, where will the money come from, and how can the system change to pay workers more, and how can it be done across the industry?

That's where *systemic* issues like unions come in as one part of the answer. If the money simply isn't there, the wages won't happen. But what about when the money IS there, but the system just chooses not to pay workers much, and the money goes to executives and/or owners/stockholders?

If the company goes from making $40/worker to $75 to $100 to $200 to $500, what decides whether the workers gets any of that increase? I don't mean a technical answer - the company decided - I mean what factors affect the decision? And those factors are largely 'the system'. From tax policy to worker power.

And that's where what the issue comes down to is, basically, are the rules set up to serve the workers, the workers and owners, or the owners?

When they're set up for the owners, you see the workers keep making minimal wages, while the owners get all the increases, and great wealth. When they're set up with workers having some representation, the workers will get a larger share.

Competition will essentially always put a cap on the wages, outside of the government running things and setting wages other than the minimum, which has almost no chance of happening. If Wal-Mart just paid workers a lot and raised prices to pay for it, competition would sell for less and get the customers, and Wal-Mart would go bankrupt.

As a society, we can choose whether the system should represent workers almost not at all, or more. We can tax great wealth or not (or, as we do, undertax it so much our debt skyrockets every year). We can give workers some power across the industry, so there might be some price increases, but workers would make more.

Instead, society basically 'doesn't care', doesn't pay attention to the issue, and lets the owners have it their way. There are still some occasional pressures, and some changes; Wal-Mart pay has sometimes gone from very low to a bit less low.

But if we want to see 'hard work rewarded', if we want to see 'the American dream' happen more, we need to elect government that will create a system, including tax policies, that have a larger share of the wealth the company creates go to workers, and not practically all to owners/shareholders.

It's sort of that simple. It won't happen by blaming individuals like CEOs and boards and owners - the system doesn't leave them much room to do anything on their own, with competition waiting to crush them for it. It starts with voters understanding the issue and preferring to respect workers more, and that creates a demand for politicians who will, and they get elected.

.

this is what freedom is for, to allocate resources efficiently. Someone’s subjective idea of what someone “should” make is irrelevant to what they are worth.

Price signals in a free market inform people. If Walmart isn’t paying enough, people find other jobs and avoid Walmart until they do pay enough.

Arbitrary price fixing will always lead to inefficiencies and misallocation of resources.


For example if government decided that doctors were overpaid, and mandated lower wagers, there would be a shortage of doctors, and a black market that pays doctors more.

 

[Dayton3]

To the OP, shouldn't it depend on what they actually do?

 

[Bullseye]

Should a Wal-Mart maker make:

- nothing
- starvation wages
- below minimum wage
- minimum wage
- $10/hour
- $15/hour
- $25/hour
- $40/hour

Now, I'm not looking for a simplistic spewing of dogma about 'the free market decides'. How much do you think they deserve to make, apart from the 'free market' blather?

For the sake of this discussion, let's pick $25/hour, an upgrade from where they are.

Can that happen?

The Wal-Mart heirs are the richest family in the world, apparently. Nearly $200 billion apparently. They COULD pay workers that overnight if they wanted. But they won't, and probably shouldn't.

Here's where the armchair capitalists have a point. The 'system' matters. If the heirs simply paid that wage, and you saw Wal-Mart an outlier in paying more than other retailers, it could become a money-losing business, that didn't 'fit' the market. Essentially a charity operation. It doesn't 'work'.

No, the heirs have more money than they should, but the way to address that is taxation, not demands for paying workers 'well above market'.

To 'fix' Wal-Mart worker pay, to raise, it, needs fixing the system. And a main question is, where will the money come from, and how can the system change to pay workers more, and how can it be done across the industry?

That's where *systemic* issues like unions come in as one part of the answer. If the money simply isn't there, the wages won't happen. But what about when the money IS there, but the system just chooses not to pay workers much, and the money goes to executives and/or owners/stockholders?

If the company goes from making $40/worker to $75 to $100 to $200 to $500, what decides whether the workers gets any of that increase? I don't mean a technical answer - the company decided - I mean what factors affect the decision? And those factors are largely 'the system'. From tax policy to worker power.

And that's where what the issue comes down to is, basically, are the rules set up to serve the workers, the workers and owners, or the owners?

When they're set up for the owners, you see the workers keep making minimal wages, while the owners get all the increases, and great wealth. When they're set up with workers having some representation, the workers will get a larger share.

Competition will essentially always put a cap on the wages, outside of the government running things and setting wages other than the minimum, which has almost no chance of happening. If Wal-Mart just paid workers a lot and raised prices to pay for it, competition would sell for less and get the customers, and Wal-Mart would go bankrupt.

As a society, we can choose whether the system should represent workers almost not at all, or more. We can tax great wealth or not (or, as we do, undertax it so much our debt skyrockets every year). We can give workers some power across the industry, so there might be some price increases, but workers would make more.

Instead, society basically 'doesn't care', doesn't pay attention to the issue, and lets the owners have it their way. There are still some occasional pressures, and some changes; Wal-Mart pay has sometimes gone from very low to a bit less low.
value of the shares of stock they own.

Instead of looking greedily at what the family owns - look back at how they earned it. Decades ago Sam Walton opened a store and competed with every other store in the neighborhood. He was good and hit on the formula of selling what people wanted and prices they were willing to pay. He then used the profits from his first story to open additional stores and then used those profits to build more. And more, and more. In doing that he dealt with competition at every turn. He expanded across the country and then internationally. Along the way he created many other wealthy people, and jobs for others.
a
Look at Amazon, or Microsoft, or damn near any other successful company you can think off. It's simple; find a niche to fill, fill it, offer your products and services at a reasonable price.

As fare as wages are concerned the formula is also simple - wages are based on a couple of principles - uniqueness and supply. If you have special skills, expertise, and knowledge that few other people have you can demand a large wage and probably get it. If the job requires only a warm body - don't expect much. The last principle is that what you produce has to be worth more to your employer than what your compensation is.

My apologies I had to clip some or your post to get under the 5k limitation

 

[ttwtt78640]

You are asking the wrong question. The correct question is: What should a given position in the retail sales industry pay?. A Walmart cashier, shelf stocker, shopping cart retriever or deli worker should be paid that which is required to attract and retain such qualified labor whether that is working in a mom & pop store, a mid sized store or an industry leader such as Walmart, Lowe's or Home Depot.

 

[Helix]

I support guaranteeing post secondary education / job training like we currently guarantee high school.

 

[beefheart]

I'll take Costco. We just ventured to the Costco in the rich N. Snottsdale area, you can find a $12,000 bottle of scotch there, go figure. We decided on the $9 bottle of pre mixed margarita...

 

[Mycroft]

Should a Wal-Mart maker make:

- nothing
- starvation wages
- below minimum wage
- minimum wage
- $10/hour
- $15/hour
- $25/hour
- $40/hour

Now, I'm not looking for a simplistic spewing of dogma about 'the free market decides'. How much do you think they deserve to make, apart from the 'free market' blather?

For the sake of this discussion, let's pick $25/hour, an upgrade from where they are.

Can that happen?

The Wal-Mart heirs are the richest family in the world, apparently. Nearly $200 billion apparently. They COULD pay workers that overnight if they wanted. But they won't, and probably shouldn't.

Here's where the armchair capitalists have a point. The 'system' matters. If the heirs simply paid that wage, and you saw Wal-Mart an outlier in paying more than other retailers, it could become a money-losing business, that didn't 'fit' the market. Essentially a charity operation. It doesn't 'work'.

No, the heirs have more money than they should, but the way to address that is taxation, not demands for paying workers 'well above market'.

To 'fix' Wal-Mart worker pay, to raise, it, needs fixing the system. And a main question is, where will the money come from, and how can the system change to pay workers more, and how can it be done across the industry?

That's where *systemic* issues like unions come in as one part of the answer. If the money simply isn't there, the wages won't happen. But what about when the money IS there, but the system just chooses not to pay workers much, and the money goes to executives and/or owners/stockholders?

If the company goes from making $40/worker to $75 to $100 to $200 to $500, what decides whether the workers gets any of that increase? I don't mean a technical answer - the company decided - I mean what factors affect the decision? And those factors are largely 'the system'. From tax policy to worker power.

And that's where what the issue comes down to is, basically, are the rules set up to serve the workers, the workers and owners, or the owners?

When they're set up for the owners, you see the workers keep making minimal wages, while the owners get all the increases, and great wealth. When they're set up with workers having some representation, the workers will get a larger share.

Competition will essentially always put a cap on the wages, outside of the government running things and setting wages other than the minimum, which has almost no chance of happening. If Wal-Mart just paid workers a lot and raised prices to pay for it, competition would sell for less and get the customers, and Wal-Mart would go bankrupt.

As a society, we can choose whether the system should represent workers almost not at all, or more. We can tax great wealth or not (or, as we do, undertax it so much our debt skyrockets every year). We can give workers some power across the industry, so there might be some price increases, but workers would make more.

Instead, society basically 'doesn't care', doesn't pay attention to the issue, and lets the owners have it their way. There are still some occasional pressures, and some changes; Wal-Mart pay has sometimes gone from very low to a bit less low.

But if we want to see 'hard work rewarded', if we want to see 'the American dream' happen more, we need to elect government that will create a system, including tax policies, that have a larger share of the wealth the company creates go to workers, and not practically all to owners/shareholders.

It's sort of that simple. It won't happen by blaming individuals like CEOs and boards and owners - the system doesn't leave them much room to do anything on their own, with competition waiting to crush them for it. It starts with voters understanding the issue and preferring to respect workers more, and that creates a demand for politicians who will, and they get elected.

And that needs voters not to be suckers for corporatist propaganda to oppose such changes, and that says nearly all the wealth going to the top is great. That 'Plutocratic Capitalism' is worse than 'Democratic Capitalism'.

These changes wouldn't be 'socialism', they wouldn't bankrupt companies, they can't make money out of thin air. But they could reduce the extreme seizure of the wealth created by the top, and have it go more to workers, and the rest of the country in taxes, even while the owners still get rich, but not as rich. And society tends to thrive more.

Your problem is this: You equate "society" with "government". That is wrong. Society is people.

Now...at one time, very long ago, people were government but that hasn't been the case for decades.

Please don't insist that government...which is not comprised of people anymore...be the arbiter of society.

In other words...keep government's nose the hell out of the wage agreement between an employer and an employee.

 

[Bullseye]

I support guaranteeing post secondary education / job training like we currently guarantee high school.

All that does is raise the bar on minimum wage. I favor making k-12 education true education. Waiting for 12 years to turn a habitual social promotion failure out into the real world isn't the way to improve.

 

[HIP56948]

15 per hour. I try not to shop at Walmart but if i did, I'd certainly pay a little more for their products, knowing that the people who work there aren't making slave wages...plus they would be paying more in taxes into the general fund. As it is now, I'd STILL be paying more for Walmart products because of housing assistance and food stamps for their employees.

 

[ttwtt78640]

I support guaranteeing post secondary education / job training like we currently guarantee high school.

What that has turned into is that someone having a HS diploma (from a public school) is not guaranteed to be able to read at the 8th grade level or do basic math. What, if anything, creating higher level diploma mills would do to raise entry (or mid) level US wages is clearly debatable - but it would raise taxation, thus increasing the price of nearly everything.

 

[Good4Nothin]

Should a Wal-Mart maker make:

- nothing
- starvation wages
- below minimum wage
- minimum wage
- $10/hour
- $15/hour
- $25/hour
- $40/hour

Now, I'm not looking for a simplistic spewing of dogma about 'the free market decides'. How much do you think they deserve to make, apart from the 'free market' blather?

For the sake of this discussion, let's pick $25/hour, an upgrade from where they are.

Can that happen?

The Wal-Mart heirs are the richest family in the world, apparently. Nearly $200 billion apparently. They COULD pay workers that overnight if they wanted. But they won't, and probably shouldn't.

Here's where the armchair capitalists have a point. The 'system' matters. If the heirs simply paid that wage, and you saw Wal-Mart an outlier in paying more than other retailers, it could become a money-losing business, that didn't 'fit' the market. Essentially a charity operation. It doesn't 'work'.

No, the heirs have more money than they should, but the way to address that is taxation, not demands for paying workers 'well above market'.

To 'fix' Wal-Mart worker pay, to raise, it, needs fixing the system. And a main question is, where will the money come from, and how can the system change to pay workers more, and how can it be done across the industry?

That's where *systemic* issues like unions come in as one part of the answer. If the money simply isn't there, the wages won't happen. But what about when the money IS there, but the system just chooses not to pay workers much, and the money goes to executives and/or owners/stockholders?

If the company goes from making $40/worker to $75 to $100 to $200 to $500, what decides whether the workers gets any of that increase? I don't mean a technical answer - the company decided - I mean what factors affect the decision? And those factors are largely 'the system'. From tax policy to worker power.

And that's where what the issue comes down to is, basically, are the rules set up to serve the workers, the workers and owners, or the owners?

When they're set up for the owners, you see the workers keep making minimal wages, while the owners get all the increases, and great wealth. When they're set up with workers having some representation, the workers will get a larger share.

Competition will essentially always put a cap on the wages, outside of the government running things and setting wages other than the minimum, which has almost no chance of happening. If Wal-Mart just paid workers a lot and raised prices to pay for it, competition would sell for less and get the customers, and Wal-Mart would go bankrupt.

As a society, we can choose whether the system should represent workers almost not at all, or more. We can tax great wealth or not (or, as we do, undertax it so much our debt skyrockets every year). We can give workers some power across the industry, so there might be some price increases, but workers would make more.

Instead, society basically 'doesn't care', doesn't pay attention to the issue, and lets the owners have it their way. There are still some occasional pressures, and some changes; Wal-Mart pay has sometimes gone from very low to a bit less low.

But if we want to see 'hard work rewarded', if we want to see 'the American dream' happen more, we need to elect government that will create a system, including tax policies, that have a larger share of the wealth the company creates go to workers, and not practically all to owners/shareholders.

It's sort of that simple. It won't happen by blaming individuals like CEOs and boards and owners - the system doesn't leave them much room to do anything on their own, with competition waiting to crush them for it. It starts with voters understanding the issue and preferring to respect workers more, and that creates a demand for politicians who will, and they get elected.

And that needs voters not to be suckers for corporatist propaganda to oppose such changes, and that says nearly all the wealth going to the top is great. That 'Plutocratic Capitalism' is worse than 'Democratic Capitalism'.

These changes wouldn't be 'socialism', they wouldn't bankrupt companies, they can't make money out of thin air. But they could reduce the extreme seizure of the wealth created by the top, and have it go more to workers, and the rest of the country in taxes, even while the owners still get rich, but not as rich. And society tends to thrive more.

Walmart jobs are for people who want to work part time, like students and retirees. If you force them to pay like it's a regular job, part-timers are out of luck.

Supply and demand is the best easiest quickest way to determine wages and prices. Duh. When politicians set wages and prices they screw things up badly.

 

[Good4Nothin]

Your problem is this: You equate "society" with "government". That is wrong. Society is people.

Now...at one time, very long ago, people were government but that hasn't been the case for decades.

Please don't insist that government...which is not comprised of people anymore...be the arbiter of society.

In other words...keep government's nose the hell out of the wage agreement between an employer and an employee.

Yeah.

 

[Bullseye]

15 per hour. I try not to shop at Walmart but if i did, I'd certainly pay a little more for their products, knowing that the people who work there aren't making slave wages...plus they would be paying more in taxes into the general fund. As it is now, I'd STILL be paying more for Walmart products because of housing assistance and food stamps for their employees.

Walmart pays above minimum and also offers some pretty nice bennies for associates.

 

[PirateMk1]

Should a Wal-Mart maker make:

- nothing
- starvation wages
- below minimum wage
- minimum wage
- $10/hour
- $15/hour
- $25/hour
- $40/hour

Now, I'm not looking for a simplistic spewing of dogma about 'the free market decides'. How much do you think they deserve to make, apart from the 'free market' blather?

For the sake of this discussion, let's pick $25/hour, an upgrade from where they are.

Can that happen?

The Wal-Mart heirs are the richest family in the world, apparently. Nearly $200 billion apparently. They COULD pay workers that overnight if they wanted. But they won't, and probably shouldn't.

Here's where the armchair capitalists have a point. The 'system' matters. If the heirs simply paid that wage, and you saw Wal-Mart an outlier in paying more than other retailers, it could become a money-losing business, that didn't 'fit' the market. Essentially a charity operation. It doesn't 'work'.

No, the heirs have more money than they should, but the way to address that is taxation, not demands for paying workers 'well above market'.

To 'fix' Wal-Mart worker pay, to raise, it, needs fixing the system. And a main question is, where will the money come from, and how can the system change to pay workers more, and how can it be done across the industry?

That's where *systemic* issues like unions come in as one part of the answer. If the money simply isn't there, the wages won't happen. But what about when the money IS there, but the system just chooses not to pay workers much, and the money goes to executives and/or owners/stockholders?

If the company goes from making $40/worker to $75 to $100 to $200 to $500, what decides whether the workers gets any of that increase? I don't mean a technical answer - the company decided - I mean what factors affect the decision? And those factors are largely 'the system'. From tax policy to worker power.

And that's where what the issue comes down to is, basically, are the rules set up to serve the workers, the workers and owners, or the owners?

When they're set up for the owners, you see the workers keep making minimal wages, while the owners get all the increases, and great wealth. When they're set up with workers having some representation, the workers will get a larger share.

Competition will essentially always put a cap on the wages, outside of the government running things and setting wages other than the minimum, which has almost no chance of happening. If Wal-Mart just paid workers a lot and raised prices to pay for it, competition would sell for less and get the customers, and Wal-Mart would go bankrupt.

As a society, we can choose whether the system should represent workers almost not at all, or more. We can tax great wealth or not (or, as we do, undertax it so much our debt skyrockets every year). We can give workers some power across the industry, so there might be some price increases, but workers would make more.

Instead, society basically 'doesn't care', doesn't pay attention to the issue, and lets the owners have it their way. There are still some occasional pressures, and some changes; Wal-Mart pay has sometimes gone from very low to a bit less low.

But if we want to see 'hard work rewarded', if we want to see 'the American dream' happen more, we need to elect government that will create a system, including tax policies, that have a larger share of the wealth the company creates go to workers, and not practically all to owners/shareholders.

It's sort of that simple. It won't happen by blaming individuals like CEOs and boards and owners - the system doesn't leave them much room to do anything on their own, with competition waiting to crush them for it. It starts with voters understanding the issue and preferring to respect workers more, and that creates a demand for politicians who will, and they get elected.

And that needs voters not to be suckers for corporatist propaganda to oppose such changes, and that says nearly all the wealth going to the top is great. That 'Plutocratic Capitalism' is worse than 'Democratic Capitalism'.

These changes wouldn't be 'socialism', they wouldn't bankrupt companies, they can't make money out of thin air. But they could reduce the extreme seizure of the wealth created by the top, and have it go more to workers, and the rest of the country in taxes, even while the owners still get rich, but not as rich. And society tends to thrive more.

Walmart pays people what they are worth. Truck drivers there start out at 80,000 a year. That high end in the industry. They have less than 3% turnover as a result. The reality is the stores pay enough to keep the turn over in employees to what they consider reasonable and cost effective. Hiring new people costs money.

 

[Craig234]

Whatever the seller of a job (Walmart) and the buyer of a job(Employee) agree on. Government needs to stay out of it.

Free market considerations arr not blather.

Yes, they are.

You even talk like a free market pirate. arr.

 

[TobyOne]

SMDH. Good lord.

 

[Parrish]

The Waltons made $70,000/min, $4,000,000/hour, $100,000/day in 2019. "In the hour that it takes a new Walmart employee to earn the $11 starting wage, the family that owns the retail giant has banked $4 million.

In fact, the third-generation heirs of Walmart WMT, -0.30% founder Sam Walton have amassed a $191 billion fortune to top Bloomberg’s list of the richest families in the world. And that has grown by $39 billion since the Waltons topped the list last year.

The report breaks that out to the Walton fortune increasing by an eye-watering $70,000 per minute, $4 million per hour or $100 million per day.

Walmart rang up $514 billion in sales from more than 11,000 stores across the globe, Bloomberg added. And the family holding company Walton Enterprises owns a 50% stake in Walmart, which paid out $3 billion in dividends last year."
The Walton family gets $100 million richer every single day - MarketWatch

Looks like they could pay a living wage instead of relying on Medicaid and SNAP to pick up the slack. An awful lot of people, not just the "poor" shop there and during the pandemic they have been essential workers stocking shelves, filling orders for curbside pickup and delivery.

 

[Helix]

All that does is raise the bar on minimum wage. I favor making k-12 education true education. Waiting for 12 years to turn a habitual social promotion failure out into the real world isn't the way to improve.

All it does is to prepare workers to achieve their potential.

 

[Helix]

What that has turned into is that someone having a HS diploma (from a public school) is not guaranteed to be able to read at the 8th grade level or do basic math. What, if anything, creating higher level diploma mills would do to raise entry (or mid) level US wages is clearly debatable - but it would raise taxation, thus increasing the price of nearly everything.

Thanks for that. I still support college or post secondary job training for all.

 

[justabubba]

as much as their union can negotiate for them

if there was any union, despite having 1.5 million walmart workers in the USA

 

[Whythink]

If we want less social programs to help people economically we must demand that 40 hours/week, regardless of the job, can allow for a decent lifestyle.

I read a post about Walmart selling to poor people so they can't afford to pay more. Creating poor people is more of the cycle.

That said, Walmart is not the worst example.

A federal minimum wage of $10/hour seems reasonable in 2020.

Free market becomes skewed when assistance requires an attempt at employment. People can lose assistance if they refuse a job. That allows businesses to offer less. This prevents people from being able to climb out of poverty.

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