Pam Ramos
Posted on 05/17/2014 8:54:15 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
When I woke up to see the news, I could hardly believe it: President Obama is planning a visit to the Mountain View Wal-Mart where I work.
But the excitement quickly passed when I found out the store would be shutting down hours in advance of his visit. I wouldn’t be able to tell the president what it’s like to work at Wal-Mart and what it’s like to struggle on low wages, without the hours I need. I am living at the center of the income inequality that he speaks about so often, and I wanted to talk to him about how to change this problem.
My situation is not unlike that of many of the 825,000 Wal-Mart associates – and many other Americans – who are working hard, but just can’t keep up. Most of us aren’t even paid $25,000 a year even though we work at the largest employer in the country and one that makes $16 billion in profits.
I wanted to tell the president what it’s like working – and living – like this.
Things have always been tight. After four years working at Wal-Mart in Mountain View, I am bringing home about $400 every two weeks (I’d like to get more hours, but I’m lucky if I work 32 hours a week). That’s not enough to pay for bills, gas and food. All I can afford to eat for lunch is a cup of coffee and a bag of potato chips. I’ve always done everything possible to stretch paychecks and scrape by. Sometimes it means not getting enough to eat.
But then I got some bad news that made stretching my budget impossible.
Two months ago, I started feeling ill. My doctor told me I needed to take a week off to have a series of medical tests. Every day for a week I went to the hospital and had to pay $30, $60 or $100 in co-pays for each appointment, test and X-ray.
With these additional expenses and without a paycheck for the week I was out, it pushed me over the edge. I didn’t have enough money to pay the rent.
Right now, I don’t have a place to call home.
I sleep on the floor of my son’s living room because I can’t afford my own place. All of my belongings are in my car. I don’t know where to send my mail.
I used to think, “At least I have my health and my family.” But my doctor thinks I may have colon cancer, and with all of the money I still owe the hospital, I’m not sure how to finish the tests and get treatment. Even though I do have insurance through Wal-Mart, the co-pays are more than I can afford with only $400 every two weeks.
I wanted to tell the president I am scared. I am scared for my health. I am scared for the future for my grandkids. And I am scared and sad about the direction that companies like Wal-Mart are taking our country.
I don’t wish the struggle I’m facing onto anyone. But sadly, my situation isn’t unique. I know that I am one of many living in the Wal-Mart economy who has no financial stability. We expect to work until our deaths because we don’t have any retirement savings and are concerned about the future in front of our children and grandchildren.
There are so many of us who have it so hard – trying to live paycheck to paycheck. While the president is here visiting my store, I want him to look inside at what is really happening at Wal-Mart.
I want the president to help us and tell Wal-Mart to pay us enough to cover the bills and take care of our families. That doesn’t seem like too much to ask from such a profitable company, a company that sets the standard for jobs in this country. And I hope it’s not too much to ask from a president who believes that income inequality is the defining challenge of our time.
I stopped reading at the coffee and potato chips for lunch.Too stupid to work anyplace else.
.
Another Astroturf story about how evil Walmart is.
Pray America wakes up
This woman needs an attitude readjustment. She is whining. She is the type who would be in this situation if her income doubled.
Pam Ramos
Okay, heres what you do. GO WORK SOMEWHERE ELSE.
Reminds me of the letters column in my college “Humor magazine” back in the day. One letter complained, “These letters are so phony, I bet you just make them up.”
Editorial reply: “You’re right. In fact, we made yours up.”
Chicken salad sandwiches cost very little money to make and take up very little time. It costs next to thing to bring a Thermos flask of coffee instead of buying coffee at work. Yet she persists in spending money she doesn't have eating junk. My guess is she's lying about her food situation. One look at her photo tells me that she's taking in too many calories rather than too few. If she's really taking in $400 every two weeks, she's eligible for $200 in food stamps a month, as well as cash benefits. She's also eligible for CA's Medicaid program.
If you are going to try and keep an apartment or any residence in Mountainview on a job working at a discount retailer, you have a vivid imagination.
Why does she keep saying the "Wal-Mart Economy"? This is not their economy. Obama is making it worse, but even he didn't create it. We are no longer able to compete in most manufacturing industries because our labor, taxes, and administrative costs are too high. We are still ahead in high tech, R&D, and other high skill industries. Other than that we have the service industries which do not pay much. The best solution for a low skill person to earn a good living is in the government industry.
Something smells in this story cause it just does not add up. I found it odd that she was required to take an entire week off in order to have a series of medical tests. Unless some of the tests were procedures such as a colonoscopy.
She also writes that she has insurance which I did not know was available to part time workers. If her take home pay is really as low as she claims she is probably eligible for numerous public benefits such as SNAP.
I used to live in Mt View, and even attended Foothill for a while. I was doing okay when I left in 2000, making enough to even shop at the Palo Alto Mall specialty shops sometimes.
Wonderful place to live, but very expensive. I got what amounted to a huge raise when I moved to Maryland.
There is no way the writer could live there for $25,000 per year. East Palo Alto, maybe.....
Well now you know.
Pam Ramos - member of OUR Walmart
OUR Walmart Declaration for Respect
In June of 2011, nearly 100 Associates representing thousands of OUR Walmart members from across the United States came to the Walmart Home Office in Bentonville, Ark., and presented a Declaration of Respect to Walmart executive management. The Declaration calls on Walmart to publicly commit to:
Listen to us, the Associates
Have respect for the individual
Recognize freedom of association and freedom of speech
Fix the Open Door policy
Pay a minimum of $13/hour and make full-time jobs available for Associates who want them
Create dependable, predictable work schedules
Provide affordable healthcare
Provide every Associate with a policy manual, ensure equal enforcement of policy and no discrimination, and give every Associate equal opportunity to succeed and advance in his or her career
Provide wages and benefits that ensure that no Associate has to rely on government assistance.
Adopting this Declaration will make Walmart a better company for Associates, customers and the communities in which it operates. As Sam Walton said, “Share your profits with all your Associates, and treat them as partners.”
So she can’t get full time hours? Could it be because of all those illegals flooding over the borders? Wait until the floodgates are really opened - those low wage workers will really be crying. And as far as they are concerned, I’ll bet they will consider it all the Republicans fault.
You are exactly on target. You are heavily penalized by the government for hiring a worker, even more for a full time worker.
My sons have their own business, they would drop dead working before they would hire somebody. There is just too much government bureaucracy associated with it, too many hoops. It brings you to a whole new level of risk and extra time and money investment that’s just not worth it if you can possibly avoid it.
Most of the jobs at Wal-Mart are not worth $25k.
Pro-Hillary piece, written by Hillary people, fronted by a Hillary fan.
What’s sad is that these women actually believe Hillary will help them.
Listen up sweety, Obama lets you work yourself to death.
Hillary will turn you into Soylent Green to feed the other workers.
Three-quarters of Palo Alto used houses are ring bought by rich foreigners, mostly from. Communist china, many all cash transactions. The average price is $2.4 million, and Palo Alto has several suburbs with higher prices than that. It is one of the most expensive places in America. So yes, a Walmart job can it be expected to cut it there. The fellow needs to use his Walmart job as a means of
Getting by while he studies and acquires salable skills to earn more. If he can’t get by there he can ask to transfer to a Walmart in a thousand communities, some quite nice , with far lower costs of living than Palo Alto. But aS long as he is there, he has a top notch community college at his disposal , one of the very best in America. He can start there.
If the best you can do in life is WalMart you are the economic equivalent to plankton, bounced around at random by the currents with no control over your own life and destined to be whale poo. Bottom of the food chain is an unhappy place.
Exactly. Her bills is not Walmart’s problem. Maybe she needs to go get a management job or a physician job or something.
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