Wages are higher in auto plants because cars are much more profitable than groceries and cheap clothes. Unions have little to do with it. Southern auto plants pay very well but are not unionized.
I can't believe I'm seeing this thread on FR. The claim that Walmart is subsidized by the government is an old trope on the left. Is the right going to start parroting leftist talking points now?
And has economic ignorance so deeply permeated the right that crap like this is even entertained?
Southern Auto Plants are not unionized because they are right to work states. Plus, higher wages generally come with jobs that require more skilled labor, stocking shelves or greeting people at the door takes less skill than assembling cars in an assembly line.
As to their profitability versus places like Walmart, 2 Walmart Heirs now own NFL teams, the latest being the Denver Broncos which sold for 4.65 billion.
Places like Walmart are less cyclical than Auto Companies, people have to eat they don’t have to purchase new cars as often.
Walmart in the past most definitely was being subsidized by the taxpayers, a large number of full-time workers needed welfare to live because they could not live on the wages Walmart was paying.
To the extent that Walmart is paying more now has more to do with them pricing competition out of business than a desire to pay more, if you notice places like Walmart are all for increases to the minimum wage rate, something they can afford versus some smaller company.