Walmart workers cost taxpayers 6.2 billion in public assistance

Walmarts is more or less a logistics organization, which makes a large number of products available to a large number of consumers at a much lower price due to their purchasing in bulk quantity. Most products today are mass produced and sold at much lower price when purchased in large quantities. I wish there was a Walmart near me. Maybe there will be a Sorosmart, Clintonmart, or an Obamamart some day to compete with Walmart for Left leaning shoppers.

Walmart employees don't produce products, they simply market them widely and as such less costly. And as long as you live in a free and democratic society, you need not shop there if you don't want to.

 

Indie

It wasn’t a typo you said that you were earning “$170 a week 55 years ago each with the arrival of our first child”

You posted that in 2011 so I worked it out at 1956 and since it was linked with the arrival of your first child something that I don’t think any parent would forget you must be correct. Or are you really saying you forget the age of your child or were you lying about the amount you were earning?

So what is it? Did you forget when your child was born?

The average wage in 1963 was $111, so $20 seems incredibly small especially since you say you were earning $170 some 8 years before?

Why did you lose the other job?

How where you supporting you child on that?

[edit]
[SIZE=12pt]So in 1956 at 21 you were earning $170 a week (a very high wage for the time), you lost or gave that up and went to a job that paid only $20 a week (a very low income for the time) when you were 28 and had a 7 year old child and from that you took a job for 0.75 an hour (how many hours?) say seven hours that is 5.25 times that by five days give us $26.25 (still very low for the time) and the thing is that it seems the Federal minimum wage was 1.25 in 1963 it was however 0.75 in 1955[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt][/SIZE]

Yet in your profile you say you were born in 1945

 

What is the goal of a society?

To me a society should be run as much as possible for the benefit of everyone in it, to bringing about the most amount of happiness to the most amounts of people.

Many right wingers seemingly influenced by Social Darwinist thinking seem to believe some are more deserving than others and want things arraigned in such a way as to give them an advantage.
And since the deserving they have chosen are in the main already advantaged inequality in societies where their ideas are policy grow.

Employment is one of those areas where this can be seen.

Background

The political history of the 20th century (in the industrialised nations) has been to one degree or another about the curtailment of the adverse effects of 19th century exploitative capitalism (some call classical liberalism).

People in many nations fought for voting rights, social benefits, safer working conditions, progressive taxation, and decent living wages. The result of that movement was that the economic benefits of production were much more distributed. Many people saw their wages grow and in the period between the end of WWII and 1970 many in the US gain middle class status.

From the 70’s onward a new idea was promoted in some of these nations (often referred to as neo-liberalism) it was in many ways opposed to the ‘distributive’ system that had developed. One thing it promoted was economic globalisation, which basically allowed back some aspects of exploitative capitalism by promoting the moving of production to nations that had not developed the more distributive systems away from those nations that had.

In this way the long fought for distributive system has been undermined in those places where it had developed. Neo-liberals argue that to ‘compete’ in the global market the elements of the distributive system need to be dismantled what is needed they say is deregulation, the cutting of welfare, tax cuts that benefit the rich, lower wages, weak government oversight etc etc.

The living wage

It was a social contract between people and state – the people would work and the state would strive for full employment to work toward creating the conditions were people had good decent jobs with living wages that allowed people to improve their lot.

But then neoliberal ideas changed that because they are not about seeking full employment (as the 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.

The contract was broken those in control of the state were not trying for full employment they were not striving to better the lot of the majority of individuals or the community - they were working in the interests of a few to drive down wages or assisting them in outsourcing jobs. It wasn’t about creating long term decent jobs it was about the short term maximisation of profit for a few.

What has happened - is that wages in some areas have fallen behind living, they are not living wages and private or public assistance is needed to supplement them.
But to me that is not a long term viable system.

Assistance was never meant to be long term, it was meant to tie people over in times of need between jobs which the social contract dictated the government would strive to provide.
As it was not meant for people who were working - an employer should be paying a living wage not been subsidized by the tax payer to pay low wages.
Those things have only appeared because the contract was broken and the priority of the managers of government shifted from helping the majority to helping the few.

But the appearance of long term assistance and the supposed ‘benefits culture’ they have created is now used by some on the right to attack the system for not working and call for its reduction or removal to ‘incentivise’ people into low paid jobs that end up only benefiting the few.

Minimum Wage

I’m all for a minimum wage but I’d want it everywhere – we could worked out what a good living wage was in differing countries then banned the import of goods from countries that didn’t at the least pay that amount to their workers?

What we are getting in some developing countries are conditions that resemble what was happening in the west before people’s struggle to get rid of exploitation (the fire in Bangladesh that killed over a thousand factory workers comes to mind).

And as James K Galbriath has pointed out –

"We must confront the global inequality crisis. For this, we must, in the final analysis, raise real wages in the countries with which our workers compete, expand their markets for our goods, and reduce their pressure on our wage structure”

To me what neoliberal inspired right wingers seem to be aiming for is for a few to be able to exploit the many more easily across the globe.

 

The problem with right wingers like Indies and others here is that for many of them their default position is ‘Assist Wealth’ and they seem to find it difficult to think beyond that or to question if that is the best position to take.

I think societies should be able helping everyone in them as much as possible so that as many as possible can have fruitful, fulfilled and health lives. Have decent liveable wages is one step in that direction.

 

cliff notes version

 

I shopped in a Wal-fuck-Mart once years ago. Never again. Any corporation that treats their workers with such disdain and ill regard for their well being can kiss my honkey ass. Besides, I thought I had stumbled onto an alternate universe consisting of escapees from a circus freak show.

 

Some Wall-Mart workers may also be receiving Section 8 housing assistance. Or the earned income tax credit.
Only a very few people want to revoke these assistance programs.



If you live in a place like Missisppi the minimum wage is a living wage due to housing costs, not so in San Francisco or wealthy expensive areas.

So profit is declining at McDonalds and they will be experimenting with touch-screen ordering. Public tastes have changed, Mickey D's is not so popular anymore. Fast food is no longer a growth industry. Can this industry support higher wages?

As far as imports from low wage nations: If China is using its military to contest sand bars, shoals and sea mounts in the South China Sea, from smaller nations perhaps that is reason to review trade policy find common ground and ban those imports, The UN is not making any noise over this.
I want to see imports continue from impoverished nations of sub-Sahara Africa as a way to help those nations and those peoples.

 

What does such a small group of people actually DO with $142B. If they gave $100,000 to each Wal-Mart employee, they would still be worth over $2B. I wonder if hard core greedy wealth mongers think about what life will be like when they are the only ones with money? The rest of us will have to come up with alternatives. And today people in general are smarter than during the last great depression. But a lot of that increased knowledge comes from instant communications. Think about how we'll live when the power goes out. Instant 19th century. We'll ALL be Steam Punks!

 

Walmarts, along with a great many other similar businesses provide people with entry level jobs, and with the possible exception of managerial positions those jobs are not what I would consider career occupations, but simply stepping stones providing some work history for young people starting out in life and some additional income for retired persons. If you want to start at the top, start your own business.

Employees have needs and wants, some more than others and some less. Employers have needs and wants too, and relative to the employment their needs and wants have nothing to do with the needs and wants of an employee who is single and healthy or another who is married with 6 or more children. Sadly, some jobs are simply not worth paying a living wage to those who do them, but they at least provide some income until better employment becomes available or additional income for those who have needs/wants greater than their current income allows. Do away with such jobs by mandating they be remunerated greater than their worth to the employer and that leaves only government to pick up the slack which can only be accomplished by taxing and/or borrowing.