Related article at Slate: Would Walmart’s Prices Spike If They Paid Their Employees More?
If Wal-Mart doesn’t pay you the money you think you deserve...Don’t Work There!!!
Most of the people that work at walmart are seniors supplementing their income or young’uns who forgot to finish high school.
Are Wal*Mart employees alive?
If they aren’t being paid a living wage, they should all be dead, eh?
The real question is that if WalMart is so awful and greedy, and they could increase their prices without losing business and market share, then why aren’t they already charging these prices and pocketing the money?
If it were not for US Govt intimidate and extortion, the wages folks earn working at Wal-Mart would be a living wage. Just look at what g0vt caused inflation has done to prices, go back 15 years and the $10 an hour employees at WalMart make would go along, long way.
Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits,WHY do we have deficits?
Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?
You and I don't propose a federal budget. The president does.
You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.
You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does.
You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does.
You and I don't control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bankdoes.
One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president, and nine Supreme Court justices 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.
I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.
I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority.They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a president to do one cotton-pickingthing. I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes.
Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.
What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits. The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.
The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes.Who is the speaker of the House? Nancy Pelosi.She is the leader of the majority party. She and fellow House members, not the president, can approve any budget they want. If the president vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.
It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million can not replace 545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts -- of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can't think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.
If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair.
If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red .
If the Army & Marines are in IRAQ, it's because they want them in IRAQ
If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it's because they want it that way.
There are no insoluble government problems.
Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power. Above all, do not letthem con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like "the economy," "inflation," or "politics" that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.
Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible.
They, and they alone, have the power.
They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses.
Provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees.
We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!
What you do with this article now that you have read it.......... is up to you.
Charlie Reese is a former columnist of the Orlando Sentinel Newspaper.
Maine is doing something about it, we are seceding.
Wal-Mart pays what people are willing to work for
Wrong damn question!
Good video, thought provoking.
Not sure how accurate any of it is. My wife is an hourly employee, has worked at Walmart for 14 years and makes about $16 per hour, which is well above other jobs in the area for equivalent work. The healthcare is great, although it is getting more expensive now that Odeathcare is in effect.
Yes, there is plenty of BS at the job. However, you can find that at any job.
If Slate paid its unpaid interns any wages, would it still be economically viable?
Many Wal-Mart employees have the best of both worlds.
They get enough from their paycheck to have fun, yet earn so little, they can still get .gov handouts and be low ranking members of the FSA.
Many Wal-Mart employees have the best of both worlds.
They get enough from their paycheck to have fun, yet earn so little, they can still get .gov handouts and be low ranking members of the FSA.
bfl
I do not comprehend the issues of wages at Walmart or fast food places. People are free to not work at jobs if they don’t think they pay enough. Walmart is singled out for this sort of crud when I doubt Kmart and Target pay is not much higher if any.
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.
My first job was in fast food, my second job was in retail at a department store, that is how I see that type of job, as a starting point- stepping stone. If working fast food or retail is your cup of tea then bust your butt and/or take night classes so you can move up into positions at those stores that pay what you want to make. Not everyone at Walmart or McDonalds is making minimum wage.
I know several people that work at my area Walmart and none of them are depending on that income to survive. Most are already retired and just want something to do or a little extra money. A couple people I know that work there are college students that are just there for spending money/work experience.
One glaring error in their “analysis” is assuming that everything else would stay the same. Which it never does. The economy is perpetually in a state of disequilibrium. When things are working well, the economy seeks general equilibrium — but, it never actually achieves it. When one thing changes, everything else has to change somewhat, to adjust to that change. And so on.
Some of the likely adjustments are easy to predict from theory. Employers will be able to hire better qualified workers, at the mandated higher wage. They will fire the marginal workers, and substitute more educated, and more motivated workers. They won’t need as many of these workers. Employers will substitute capital for labour — investing in new technology (which their more qualified workers will be able to operate), in lieu of cheap labour. Again — a reduction in workforce. More retail business will migrate from bricks-and-mortar stores to on-line. Once again, fewer minimum-wage workers will be required.
“The way it works shipboard is, you do your job. You do it good you get a better job” Captain Ron
The grinding recession accounts for much of the increase the past few years, but not for its entirety. Spending on food stamps doubled between 2001 and 2006, even though unemployment was low in those years. Even when the economy is projected to improve in the future, usage of food stamps will remain elevated above historic norms. Food Stamp Nation is here to stay. One of its pillars is so-called categorical eligibility, which means that if someone is eligible for another welfare program, he is presumptively eligible for food stamps. In 2000, the Clinton administration issued regulations saying that merely getting a noncash welfare benefit could make someone eligible. Getting a welfare brochure or being referred to an 800 number for services is enough to qualify in almost all the states. In Vermont, receiving a bookmark with a telephone number and website for services is enough.
Categorical eligibility effectively wiped out the program’s old asset test (i.e., you couldn’t have $30,000 in the bank and get food stamps), although income limitations still apply. In the Obama stimulus, the work requirement was suspended, too, and hasn’t been restored. The requirement had discouraged young, able-bodied nonparents from utilizing the program; there are millions of them on food stamps. The bottom line is that government at all levels actively wants people on the program.
Newt Gingrich famously calls Barack Obama “the food-stamp president.” But the first president worthy of the moniker was George W. Bush. His administration brought a Madison Avenue element to the otherwise unreconstructed Great Society program. Not everyone who is eligible for food stamps knows it or wants to sign up. Bush began a recruitment campaign. In the same vein, the Obama administration is running radio ads hailing food stamps as a way to lose weight. At the local level, county governments spread the word and work to overcome residual cultural resistance to taking government benefits. The federal government pays $50 million in bonuses to states for signing people up.