Walmart workers cost taxpayers 6.2 billion in public assistance

Reading through this thread it is yet another example of right wingers putting forward deeply flawed solutions that seem to be about making things worse for people rather than better.

There is the same old ‘free market’ mentality that seems to ignore the fact that there never has been and never could be a free market.

What has happened is that Wal-Mart (like many other employers) has realized it can pass on the some of the expense of paying for its employees onto the state and so up its profit margin and ‘business friendly’ politicians have allowed this to happen.

The answer to this from the right?

Well it’s not to make the employers pay their staff a living wage but a call to remove the public assistance. How is that meant to make this bad situation better?

Well they argue the employers would then have to pay their employees a living wage.

But it seems to me that given the nature of some employers and the seeking of profit that the opposite would be true – in a system of work or starve, any work at any wage is better than starving, the employee can work longer hours, find cheaper less healthy accommodation, their children can work, they can do two – three –four other jobs etc….the already squeezed would be become the squashed.

 

The United States border is protected by Wal-Mart. Good to know!

 

walmart is the company store

 

What would make them pay a living wage under those conditions? Relying on Wal-Mart to do the 'right thing' in those circumstance when they don't do the 'right thing' under the current ones makes no sense.

 

People are entitled to eat. It's a human right, and it is the government's responsibility to see that human rights are not violated.

Alternately, they could just legislate a living wage, and stop giving walmart corporate welfare. Walmart are the ones abusing the system, in a cunning way that lets people blame it on their workers.

 

Wlamarts products are getting shittier and shittier, too....I avoid going there as much as possible. Last time I was there was to get a big kid pool for outside in the pen for the dogs when they are out there with some blankets in it.....and I noticed then,,,YUCK, get me out of here!

 

Walmart, having paid $7.1 billion in taxes more than covered the $6.2 billion mentioned in this threads topic, therefore Walmart didn't cost taxpayers but actually aided taxpayers with $900 million additional money to be spent by government.

 

I’ve always pointed out that right wing libertarians and their fellow travelers are mainly or only interested in advantaging wealth and here is more proof – someone wanting government involvement because it helps an already wealthy company boost its profits.

Why should general tax payers who might not even use wal-mart, subsidize that company, even though it would be a going concern even if it did pay livable wages?

 

How much more would taxpayers have had to subsidize those Walmart employees receiving public assistance had they not been gainfully employed by Walmart earning at least a portion of their keep?

 

That didn't answer his question.

 

If you are referring to the question in the post above mine, it was not my intent to answer such a fallaciously presumptive question.

Employers, Walmart included, pay employees relative to the value of the work they perform, not relative to their individual needs. Should a single employee with no dependents be paid less than a married employee with 3-4 kids? The definition of a 'living wage' can vary greatly from one employee to the next. Walmarts, fast food chains, etc. are not what I would consider to be long term career field employers for the greatest majority of their employees.

 

Are you actually sticking up for Walmarts practices? When the owners are collectively worth 142 billion dollars?

You know, many , many people aren't as talented as you may be and can never attain the success that you have. Does that mean to you

that because some are incapable of what you are capable of= higher attainment, they should be paid less than enough to live on without

getting help from us--the taxpayers? When those owners have more money than they could EVER spend in their lifetimes? I don't know how you

can defend the situation. You rightwingers don't like food stamps anyway and yet you're willing to defend those billionaires that think

it's perfectly fine to put the burden of their greed on the rest of us? Fuck those 1%er greed-heads. A permenant, struggling middle and

lower class bodes ill for the country as a whole. It's happening now.

 

Hello Everyone:

I have no problem with individual workers attaining food stamp assistance. it goes to the workers, not to the corporations.

Does it constitute a Subsidy to The Corporation?...........Well not any more so than it is a subsidy any other retail enterprise; each qualified employee is eligible.

In New York State, the constant debate is over the smorgasboard of incentives and benefits that government lays out; and then, The Piggie who loads up: ( Thomas Golsalino )
so is the Question: is Gosalino a Piggie ? or are the benefits just too generous?

I do not know if the retail sector is the path to wealth, seems like Sears is close to bankruptcy and plenty of stores and strip malls are vacant. Retail employs plenty of people. If I do something to help the WalMart Worker, how does that help the bodega employee? I would like a solution that helps everybody.

So say we boost minimum wages to Ten Dollars or to Twelve, that is not going to make anybody comfortable they will not be able to purchase a house or a college education.
and if they are Part-Time it is not likely to help much.

Why is there such an incentive for part time work and how can we reverse it?

Here is one hypothetical solution: Have all of the government employees in the town contribute to thier own health plan and pension plan then take that diference as a real estate tax rebate to the retail store which is mandated to be paid to full time workers there it might mean another dollar per hour for the workers.

I am the first person on Hip Forums to rail against favorable treatment for Real Estate Tax write offs and accelerated depreciation for plant and equipment. These policies have created a building boom in underperforming stores and restaurants. Canibilization of markets and zombie enterprises. Overvalued property leveraged with big mortgages.

We need tax policies that reward full time work. Rewrite the tax code!

 

The New York State Wage Board will convene today to decide whether to raise the minimum wage for tipped workers. These are employees of hotels, restaurants and bars.
They can be paid Five Dollars an hour. The Community Service Society is an anti-poverty advocacy group says hospitality workers are twice as likely to live in poverty as workers in other sectors. New York's minimum ware will reach $9. by year 2016.

 

The minimum wage has never been enough to live comfortably on. And it never will be. Who decides what the minimum wage is going to be??

The 'haves', of course. My ex was paid 2 dollars an hour in Florida as a waitress. And then taxed 8 percent on her freely given tips, whether she was actually tipped or not. I was paid a buck an hour (pretty standard) to drive truck in 1960. I, fortunately was able to better myself, but many can't.

 

There should not be a government mandated minimum wage at all. A minimum wage should be determined between an employer and an employee relative to what is agreeable to each according to their collective assessment of the cost and labor.

I don't know how your wife could have legally been taxed on money she did not receive, and in 1963 I left a job paying $20 a week for another job paying $0.75 an hour, I sure would have liked to have found one that paid $1 an hour but like you and the vast majority of others I eventually bettered myself.

 

what makes no sense to me, is that anyone who would want to live in a free and democratic society, would be willing to do business with an organization like wall-mart, at all.

that there would even BE a market, for the corporatization of retailing.

 

Indie why do you repeat stuff you couldn’t defend from criticism the first time you said it?

I mean we covered most of these things on page 2 of this very thread (and many times before in other threads)

Post 48 just above when you said something similar

But how is relative value to society judged? I mean to me a sewage worker that maintains the sewers and keeps them flowing so we don’t get shit floating down the gutters is worth more to society than a speculating trader on Wall Street. Thing is that there is no ‘free market’ in employment remuneration the market will always be manipulated workers fought to gain better pay and conditions at the expense of wealth’s profits.

This meant that there was a huge rise in the number of the middle class in the period from the end of WWII to the rise of neoliberal/free market ideas in the 70-80’s when the real term incomes of the middle and lower classes on the main stagnated or fell while the incomes at the top greatly increased.

Also as has been explained to you many times there is an inequality of power between employer and employee that can be exploited by employers, especially in the type of society you want where it would be basically work or starve.

Post 52 above

Anyway yes – such work has often been called ‘entry level’ employment, for those coming into the jobs market and then moving on and up. BUT you need the jobs to move onto and ones that improve your situation. If there are not the jobs then people can find themselves stuck.

As I’ve explained before the life and the jobs situation in the US is very different today from 1950, you did very well but you were doing it in an economy that’s economic model was striving for full employment and booming - today the economic model is to have unemployment to keep wages low and the economy is limping.

Indie I think you should stop looking to the past as if were the same situation as today, it’s over you need to look at today’s reality.

Post 48 above and post 16 Graduated minimum wage thread -

Thing is that there is not an equality of power and freedom between employer and employee. The gap is closer in societies with near full employment but becomes wider with high unemployment.

The problem here is that the neoliberal ideas that many right wingers support and which began to take hold in the 1970’s onward are not about seeking full employment (as Keynesian based models are), it is about having unemployment because that is one of the means of driving down wage prices. It is the same reason why so many neoliberals oppose organised labour movements and social programmes because their removal would also increase the possibility for exploitation, as in work or starve.

As pointed out thousands of times many people that are seeking assistance are working. People in hardship may not like the wage been offered but are more likely to accept what they can; the power is with the employer.

http://www.hipforums.com/forum/topic/448948-graduated-minimum-wage/

 

Indie

Why lie?

I mean it can’t have been 1963, remember this is me Indie I’ve read and remember everything you’ve said to me here.

Post 15 [posted in 2011]

http://www.hipforums.com/forum/topic/389150-how-many-libertarians-on-this-board-were-born-into-poverty/

You said that in 1956 you were getting around double the average pay of the time $170 dollars a week not $20 and you also had a wife and child.

Were you lying then or you lying now or was it a mistake and you meant 1943?

But as said in a post above “the federal minimum wage in 1945 was $0.40 so 0.75 would have been good pay”

 

If I said 1956 then I must have made a typo as I was making more than $0.75 an hour then, but moved back to my home town where jobs were scarce in 1963. In 1943 I was only 8 and the only money I made at that time was $0.25 for each burlap bag of sawdust I bagged. And that was real good money for an 8 year old who had no expenses and little opportunity to spend the money I earned. I probably cleared $1.00 or $1.25 that year. 1963 is the correct year that I made $20 a week pumping gas at a Texaco gas station, which I quit as soon as I found a job that paid more.

Just another reason why it's a waste of time to respond to Balbus, who although claiming to be a moderator goes to great length to change the discussion topic into being about the persons who respond in disagreement to him.

I only responded to that because I obviously and admittedly must have made an error in a past post, and will therefore put Balbus back on my personal ignore list.