If Walmart Paid Its Employees a Living Wage, How Much Would Prices Go Up? (video)

YouTube ^ | April 4, 2014 | Slate .Video

[EveningStar]

In the series "The Secret Life of a Food Stamp," Marketplace reporter Krissy Clark traces how big-box stores make billions from the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, aka food stamps. What's more, the wages of many workers at these stores are so low that the workers themselves qualify for food stamps—which the employees then often spend at those big-box stores...

[Tammy8]

Walmart has lobbyists getting people on food stamps or making sure they use the food stamps at Walmart? Do you have a source for that?

[evilC]

Same arguments could be made about immigration and crop picking: In the absence of a continuous supply of cheap labor ‘farmers’ (agribusiness) would have to pay more labor. That extra would not hugely raise the price of food. Those higher paid workers would need less government support.

Indeed immigration restriction would be as effective as a minimum wage increase in raising pay for lower paid workers. Of course, I doubt Slate would ever make such an argument.

[C. Edmund Wright]

That article is absurd, and not on topic of what we’re talking about anyway. The author is talking about something different, and does not make his case.

[353FMG]

Long time ago in a different America I was getting good job offers from international companies six months before I graduated from college. I was definitely not the valedictorian type of student and I did not attend an Ivy League school but my game was engineering.

I, and many others, received invitations for interviews at company headquarters, all expenses paid. On campus there were stalls with representatives of the FBI, CIA, AEC, Shell Oil, SOCAL and others with lip-smacking job offers.

Sheesh, I daily thank God that I was given the blessings of once having experienced that gone-by America.

[redgolum]

If you Google” Wal-Mart lobbying” one of the auto fills is about food stamps and the various farm bills. I apologize but I can’t get my new phone to cut and paste the links. Blasted thing is to small for my fingers.

[GAFreedom]

If employees want higher paying jobs they need to find out what qualifications such jobs require and do whatever they need to do in order to qualify for that type of job.

Got to be careful these days. For my employer (and most IT companies) one of the qualifications is "Never have worked retail, fast food, or manual labor." You did? Resume gets File 13ed. You want to leave that stuff off.

[KneelBeforeZod]

I’m here about 1/2 mile from the Walmart that Barry spoke at about 30 mins ago.

Somehow, the ironicalness [sic...] of their own argument is lost on the crowd who wants wages raised. Probably because they’re busy rushing off to protest how high tech wages and google busses have pushed up rent prices.