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Sign Of The Times - Wal-Mart Launches Employee Food Drive
Submitted by Michael Snyder of The Economic Collapse blog,
You may find what is happening at one Wal-Mart in Ohio very hard to believe. At the Wal-mart on Atlantic Boulevard in Canton, Ohio employees are being asked to donate food items so that other employees that cannot afford to buy Thanksgiving dinner will be able to enjoy one too. You can see a photo of the donation bins that has been posted on Twitter right here. On the one hand, it is commendable that someone at that Wal-Mart is deeply concerned about the employees that are so poor that they cannot afford to buy the food that they need for Thanksgiving. On the other hand, this is a perfect example that shows how the quality of the jobs in this country has gone down the toilet.
Wal-Mart is the largest employer in the United States and it had operating income of 26.5 billion dollars last year. Wal-Mart is not required to pay their employees a decent wage, and it is very unlikely that anyone will force them to. But they should. Because Wal-Mart does not pay decent wages to their employees, the rest of us end up with the bill. As you will see below, huge numbers of Wal-Mart employees end up on Medicaid and other government assistance programs. Meanwhile, those that control Wal-Mart continue to enjoy absolutely massive profits.
The following is a short excerpt from a local news story about the donation bins that have been set out at the Wal-Mart in Canton, Ohio. As the story notes, this does not appear to be a nationwide program, and the donation bins are only available in an employee-only area...
The storage containers are attractively displayed at the Walmart on Atlantic Boulevard in Canton. The bins are lined up in alternating colors of purple and orange. Some sit on tables covered with golden yellow tablecloths. Others peer out from under the tables.
This isn't a merchandise display. It's a food drive - not for the community, but for needy workers.
"Please Donate Food Items Here, so Associates in Need Can Enjoy Thanksgiving Dinner," read signs affixed to the tablecloths.
It just seems really crazy that the largest employer in the country pays so little that some of their employees cannot even afford to eat Thanksgiving dinner.
Is this what the future of America is going to look like?
According to official Wal-Mart numbers, more than half of their hourly workers make less than $25,000 a year.
That breaks down to about $2,000 a month before taxes.
Could you survive on that?
Could you afford to support a family on that?
It turns out that a lot of Wal-Mart employees simply cannot get by without financial help from the government, and the numbers are staggering. A recent Businessweek article discussed one study that found that 300 employees at just one Wal-Mart in Wisconsin actually receive a combined total of nearly a million dollars a year in public assistance...
“A decent wage is their demand—a livable wage, of all things,” said Representative George Miller (D-Calif.). The problem with companies like Wal-Mart is their “unwillingness, not their inability, to pay that wage,” he said. “They hand off the difference to taxpayers.” Miller was referring to a congressional report (PDF) released in May that calculated how much Walmart workers rely on public assistance. The study found that the 300 employees at one Supercenter in Wisconsin required some $900,000 worth of public assistance a year.
And according to Politifact, in many states Wal-Mart employees represent the largest single group of people enrolled in the Medicaid program...
In Florida, Wal-Mart topped all companies operating in Florida with the largest number of employees and family members (12,300) eligible for Medicaid, according to a 2005 Tampa Bay Times story. Wal-Mart also ranked highly (No. 2) for dependents enrolled in Florida Healthy Kids or KidCare, trailing Miami-Dade County employees.
In Missouri, where Wal-Mart is the largest employer behind state government, the state’s social services department determined Walmart employees outnumbered all others with employees and family members enrolled in MO HealthNet, the state’s Medicaid plan, in the first quarter of 2011. However, at almost 14 percent, it did not represent the highest percentage of workers enrolled or responsible for an enrollee (Dollar General, for instance, was much higher at 42 percent).
And in Pennsylvania, a 2006 Philadelphia Inquirer investigation revealed the company had the highest percentage of employees enrolled in Medicaid. One in six of Walmart’s 48,000 Pennsylvania employees were enrolled in Medicaid, costing the state about $15 million a year (it’s likely higher because the Inquirer’s story did not cover employees’ dependents on Medicaid, or any other public assistance such as food stamps).
This is a disgrace.
Your taxes and my taxes are going to subsidize Wal-Mart.
The government has to take more money from all the rest of us because Wal-Mart will not pay their workers a decent wage. Because Wal-Mart will not support them, we end up supporting them.
Meanwhile, the six heirs of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton have as much wealth as the bottom one-third of all Americans combined.
So why do people still work there?
Well, because there is a huge shortage of jobs in this country. As I noted yesterday, the total number of working age Americans without a job has increased by 27 million since the year 2000.
Right now we have a growing unemployment crisis in this country that is being seriously downplayed by the mainstream media.
According to John Williams of shadowstats.com, if long-term discouraged workers were still included in the official government employment figures like they were back in 1994, then the broadest measure of unemployment would now be approaching 25 percent. In fact, according to his charts unemployment in the U.S. is now worse than it was at any point during the last recession.
And even the New York Times is admitting that long-term unemployment in America is up by 213 percent since 2007.
At this point, there are millions upon millions of desperate Americans that will take just about any job that they can get.
Meanwhile, the quality of the jobs in this country continues to go downhill very rapidly.
For example, did you know that about 40 percent of all U.S. workers actually make less than what a full-time minimum wage worker made back in 1968?
And did you know that 65 percent of all American workers make less than $40,000 a year before taxes?
For much more on this, please see my previous article entitled "15 Signs That The Quality Of Jobs In America Is Going Downhill Really Fast".
At the same time, the good paying high tech jobs that our politicians have been promising us continue to disappear. For instance, 19,507 biopharma jobs were eliminated between January 1, 2013 and October 31, 2013. That is a 68 percent increase over the pace of biopharma job losses during the same period last year.
So are there any areas of the country that are actually doing well right now?
Well, yes there is. In fact, the Washington D.C. region has added more "1 percent households" over the past decade than anyone else has...
The winners in the new Washington are not just the former senators, party consiglieri and four-star generals who have always profited from their connections. Now they are also the former bureaucrats, accountants and staff officers for whom unimagined riches are suddenly possible. They are the entrepreneurs attracted to the capital by its aura of prosperity and its super-educated workforce. They are the lawyers, lobbyists and executives who work for companies that barely had a presence in Washington before the boom.
During the past decade, the region added 21,000 households in the nation's top 1 percent. No other metro area came close.
I used to live in the D.C. area, and I can tell you that the folks out there are living the high life at your expense.
In one recent article, I noted that the average federal employee living in the Washington D.C. area received total compensation worth more than $126,000 in one recent year.
Of course you and I are paying the bill for this too. The U.S. national debt is on pace to more than double during the eight years of the Obama administration, and our politicians seem to have no trouble continuing to steal about 100 million dollars from our children and our grandchildren every single hour of every single day.
Meanwhile, thousands of other communities all over the nation are slowly being transformed into rotting, festering hellholes. The following is an excerpt from a recent CNBC article that discussed what is happening to Trenton, New Jersey...
When a city is badly broken, it can be very tough to fix.
Just ask Darren Green, president of a coalition of community groups in Trenton, N.J., where deep budget cuts in 2011 forced the city to lay off a third of its police force.
"We're at a place now where it's very dangerous to walk the streets," he said, his thoughts periodically interrupted by the distant sound of passing sirens. "The school system is dysfunctional and not working. You have young people who are robbing elders. Young people who are destroying communities. With no leadership and the community in disarray, there's a lot of bad here."
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Who would be down arrowing these anti-Walmart posts? If you agree with Walmart, you are seriously braindead.
I don't understand Walmart's business model. Apparently they buy stuff from China and sell it in the US. But Chinese workers get paid less than US workers, therefore they are richer. Why doesn't China keep all the stuff and sell it to those Chinese workers who get paid less money?
So, what is the number Walmart should pay an employee to stuff Chinese made shit on the shelves ? $30k ? $35K, $45K ???
How is this argument any different to raising the minimum wage to $20 per hour nationally ? Where do you think this wage inflation will show up in the economy ? Who ultimately will pay the price in the end ?
Like it or not ALL other retailers benchmark their pricing off Walmart. Higher end retailers such as a Wegman's, Publix, used to be Ukrop's still calibrate their pricing via Walmart. No, they don't want to be as low as Walmart, but even Kroger uses a "market basket" of competitive pricing then they set their EDLP pricing off of it on select items throughout the store.
So, if Walmart pays their workers a higher wage, do you think they will simply eat the profit loss and not raise their prices on the goods they sell ? When Walmart raises their prices, every nearby retailer will do the same.
If you want to hurt Walmart, shop locally owned Supermarkets, hardware stores, etc... Those that plow their cash flow back into the local economy. Stay away from national chains where their profits only go back to the corporate mother ship to purchase $100k shower curtains and such.... A good reminder as Christmas draws near ...
they could cut dividiends you stupid brainwashed idiot.
Rocky Patel:
You are truly a fucking retard. Your name should be Tattoo, let me us know when you want to stop living on Fantasy Island and start living in the real world. Walmart pays about a 2.39 % dividend yield. Who on the board is going to stand up and say they should cut their payments to their owners, you know, their shareholders? Great fucking fantasy Patel, but as likely to happen as you actually getting a job and working for a living.
One other small consideration, who do you think benefits from the dividends Walmart pays? Widows, orphans, possibly even YOUR Pension fund if your retarded ass was smart enough to hold a job like a sanitation engineer. Working at Walmart shining the floors would be the apex of your career - Fantasy Island Shit Bag Rocky Patel....
yes genius, you live in a free and fair open market...right?
Cut dividends! BRILLIANT. The answer to a lack of demand for labor! Who is the idiot here? If WMT was 1/10th the size and had 1/10th the evil profits would you be happier? Fool.
you are an idiot.
"Cut dividends! BRILLIANT. The answer to a lack of demand for labor! Who is the idiot here? If WMT was 1/10th the size and had 1/10th the evil profits would you be happier? Fool."
I'd be happy to be able to buy appliances, hardware, perhaps even a hammer made in USA just like my dad used to.
Me too, but it's not the labor cost alone (not by a long shot) that prevents those things from being made here. It's also the 94th worst corp tax structure in the developed world (German study) the most progressive tax system in the developed world, The highest income taxes in the developed world (what small bixz has to pay) . 1.75 trillion in reg costs (before Dudd-Frankenstien) and a Tsunami of unfunded government ponzi entitlement schemes that makes it completely impossible to mfg hammers and appliances and so on in America now. Who in their right miond risks investment capital into this F*#KED up place besides huge crony biz able to buy relief from the above??
Franky, we should be thianking WMT as it's the only release valve for what would otherwise be skyrocking prices here. Or maybe we need the damn crushing inflation to wake us up?
you might be a little too hung up on tax rates...
Everything cannot be solved in one swoop, but it would make sense to have WalMart costs more transparently covered, rather than having future tax payers fund their present employees so that present profits can be larger
IIRC around $12 an hour minimum wage would put us back around where it was in 1970. Sure, businesses will pass on their costs as much as they can and higher prices may mean lower demand for some products, which could possibly lead to lower levels of employment. But I believe that a point of balance would be reached, a bottom if you will. Also such a move should move the needle on income inequality and stimulate the economy. Because I promise you that will be some hot money. Someone who has been making around $8 an hour get an extra $4 they are going to spend that money. And isn't an increase in monetary velocity something we need right now?
If nothing Changes the Hope in this country, I am afraid in a few months everyone will just be looting the Stores ala' Venezuela
@Murf_DaSurf
Uhhh....the disturbing trend of flash mobs is on the rise....saw a report from Chicago last week.
It's not just government subsidies via Medicaid...many/most Wal-Mart locations have been subsidized by local governments so giddy to get Wally World in their back yard that they give 10 year property tax exemptions. Economic development jobs and the magic jobs multiplier! Crony capitalism, FTMFW!
They usually fail to account for the local stores that shut down and spit out employees onto welfare after Mega-Mart opens. Great business model, while it lasts.
@taketheredpill
In my little town, Wal-Mart has relocated twice in the last 25 years, both times receiving property tax exemptions with each move. Each time Wal-Mart relocated, it was to a previously undeveloped location and the city co-operated by building roads and altering bus routes. Wal-Mart was easily able to sell the old site, which was in a developed, desirable area. Wal-Mart benefits by locating on cheap dirt and coercing the town hall cronies to provide vital city services to more and more remote locations.
Excellent point. Paying so little that their employees need to apply for SNAP, Medicaid and Section 8 is only the beginnings of the many ways they steal your tax dollars. They steal local tax $$ through their abuse of eminent domain, their demands on localities to supply "infrastructure" (that new interchange that serves no purpose other than a feeder route to Wal-Mart's parking lot) all the while robbing these same localities of tax revenue by driving out local competition. Real nice business model there.
Beezlebub of Bentonville operates 5 Wallyworlds and 1 Sam's club within a 15-mile radius of my US zip code. That's a huge number of displaced Grocery Stores, Pharmacies, Gas Stations, Electronics Stores, Furniture Stores, Clothing Stores, Hardware Stores, Gun Stores, and other stores-- not to mention LOCAL PRODUCERS which would otherwise exist and employee an even larger number of people. And instead of the profits and tax revenues remaining in the local community in the hands of small business owners- ALL the profit flows out to Bentonville for distribution to shareholders.
Exactly UR. The argument around "demanding" Wal-Mart increase wages is a false one. Same goes for Target, Dollar General, Family Dollar, Big Lots, Dollar Tree, etc.. If you want to send these companies a message around low wages and benefits, SHOP LOCAL !!!!!
And they do this with a straight face. I really dislike these people.
http://vegasxau.blogspot.com
Why not, its been successful for the Fed and it's member banks.
RE
I make 32K here in MA, but after taxes, I barely clear 1850/mth. And I barely support myself.
There are wage strikes around the nation. "no inflation" from QE printing my ass.
I was working this morning and we were so busy. We had to unload 8 trucks. Christmas is coming and they are planning on a very busy season.
Our shift supervisor, LaQuish said "this be goin' be one bizzy Chrismas".
Over.
The Welfare State and Big Corporate are co-dependent. It is just being exposed here. WalMart paying a livable wage = end of WalMart.
Ironically, the recent articles here have shown that if Walmart doubled the pay of those making under $25,000.00, the employees' lives would be either worse or the status quo.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-11-27/when-work-punished-tragedy-amer...
but fuck Walmart, generally.
I stopped reading after the fragment "decent wage".
If Wal-Mart could pay their employees more they would.
If Wal-Mart could charge more for their merchandice they would.
Mark 14:7; Jesus notes: "The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want..."
If I could help more, I would. The problem with this article is the author stomps around in righteous indignation saying something should be done but fails the basic understanding, charity begins at home.
or some old saw about bad choices leading to bad situations?
RE
No.
Organisms are always inheritly selfish. The only reason why primates evolved into the traits of compromise and compassion was because their ENVIRONMENT forced them to. They realized that in order to survive as a species and escape predators and overcome food/water shortages, they had to at least show some cooperation between each other to ensure their seeds would survive those challenges (instead of fighting over pussy all the time).
Wal-Mart only pays their employees more when the market demands it, and those who challenge Wal-Mart have the right to do so.
Neither has happened because the labor (and stock) market is completely broken and as the rate of unionization declines in this nation, the right of "Freedom of Assembly" declines more and more (the NSA and IRS's actions cement this even more, and they went after conservative groups).
TPTB, on both sides of the isle, are scared shitless of collaboration. Corporate Communism at its finest.
To "Ajax4hire",
That really takes the cake. You lift my name, you quote the bible to defend Walmart and you can't spell merchandise.
GO TO HELL.
"If Wal-Mart could pay their employees more they would. If Wal-Mart could charge more for their merchandice they would."
Truly stupendous stupidity here. Then you go on to "blame" yourself for Walmart's sins. What a bizarre cocktail of corporate masochism at work in your mind. Christ on a cracker, just what unbelievable world of religious economics do you hail from? Whatever it is, wherever it is, please go back there. You are something so archaically disgusting (as in infanticide for girls) that I'd be willing to bet you beat your wife for no other reason than that she is your wife as in "oxen" - sound familiar to you ??
Were you "home schooled" by some crank cult'? You can't spell.
What a dreadful load of shite you are.
You know what the really sick thing is about this. Walmart is most likely getting sales revenue from the same employees they are asking to donate since they most likely will buy the food at Walmart to donate to their coworkers. Walmart gets the money they paid the workers back in sales revenues from their employees to donate food (bought from the employer) to those they underpay. Sounds like a classic fascist/socialist money redistribution circle jerk. Reminds of those old mining setups where they had a company store and paid the workers in company coins that could only be spent at the company store in the camp. The more things change....
Winning!
The sentiment of the workers helping each other out is not bad or wrong but you can see how Walmart is steering it for nefarious self serving purposes here instead of genuinely giving a fuck. If they did they would match the contributions for starters or donate themselves to take care of their own employees if they really cared so fucking much. They have plenty of short dated canned goods (that have to be pulled off the shelves anyways) that they can donate at any time, especially for an operation their size.
"The sentiment of the workers helping each other out is not bad or wrong but you can see how Walmart is steering it for nefarious self serving purposes here instead of genuinely giving a fuck."
It's called cynical exploitation of human emotion.
Pathos and Ethos are for real. Walmart uses them, exploits them: Walmart is a shithole. a mouthpiece full of shit for one family and its HFT "shareholders".
Why don't they just eat cake?
/sarc/
"Why don't they just eat cake?
/sarc/"
Oh but they do, they do. Real quality cake with real quality ingredients -sarc-. The cake you're speaking of costs less than a bag of fresh produce - so they do eat cake and pounds of other cheap trash full of calories but no vitamins. That's Walmart.
It was 'brioche' not cake and Marie Antoinette never said it. Look up Rousseau who first circulated "la brioche" quotation. Most likely some 18th century asshole like Benmoshe said it, like Benmoshe but not Jewish
.
The view that people eat junk food to save money - because healthy food costs so much more is not correct.
You do need to pay attention to what items are in season.
Go to a grocery store sometime and look around - plenty of items that are cheap and healthy - but you need to spend a little time and effort processing and cooking them.
Many are just too fucking lazy to be bothered - and they have gotten use to eating chips and Little Debbie - they like the taste - they just tear open the package and shove it in their mouth - no preparation effort required.
Walmart sells stuff people want to buy - that is what retail companies normally try and do - and while I would rather shop for fresh stuff at HEB, WM does have a whole section dedicated to fresh fruit and vegetables.
You are not blaming WM for the food choices people make - are you?
I like how everyone avoids the poison bottle sitting next to the Kool-Aide, but drinks the Kool-Aide all the same.
Let me state it succinctly, Walmart and the Waltons are not to blame. They are a symptom of the theft and criminality of government and the FedRes.
That is unless one believes that printing, stealing, trillions of dollars from the American people over the last 100 years is a good thing.
Believing that it's Walmart, etc. is what they want/need you to believe. Don't drink their Kool-Aide.
Why doesnt walmart just give all the employees a $60 certificate good at their store? For food of course. Problem solved.
Walmart is probably the best at grabbing money upfront on items. You notice how they did their price match guarantee for the holiday season. Basically they tell you buy what you want, don't worry about what it costs. If you find it cheaper between now and Christmas they will give you the lower price automatically. The hitch If you paid $100 and you find it for $50 they give $50 back as a gift card that you can only spend in a Walmart store. They got your $100 one way or the other. Though in fairness that extra $50 you could easily spend in a Walmart on non-discretionary items you were going to have to spend on anyways after Christmas like food.
Winning!
Its not the wages that Walmart pays that is the problem. Most of those jobs were for young entry level persons. The economy is so bad that now people have no other choice but to take those jobs. Its better than nothing, but it wont feed a family. The bigger problem is the JOBS problem. It aint gonna help with all the fascists wanting amnesty for illegals. This sh*t has gotten way out of hand. Most people are too stupid to see that these people at the top are looting the economy at the expense of the other 99% I thought I was a crazy conspiracy theorist until I foud zero hedge and saw that I'm just observant with half a brain and the majority are walkers.
It isn`t just an issue just with Walmart. If people argue that there is plenty of labour out there to replace these impoverished workers - the answer is that the systematic destruction and dumbing down of the middle class has led to this.
Story reported here is a crock of shit. The Canton store's program is in-house and voluntary to help co-workers deal with a financial hardship emergency, and has been repeated the last several holiday seasons. The critics spinning the story are unions attempting to organize workers. See ABC report: http://abcnews.go.com/Business/ohio-walmart-store-holds-thanksgiving-food-drive-associates/story?id=20927026
Oh Forbes you really are unbelievable. What an utter idiot.
Oh Yeah. I forgot. F%CK walmart. I avoid that chinese dumping ground like the plague. Buy local!!!!
Fuck UNIONS!
The Chamber of Industry and Commerce agrees with you. I don't.
So, take the nation's two largest employers - Walmart and the Government; compare the average wage and benefits between the two groups. What you are left with is a snapshot of the Great Divide in America. What you have is evidence that America is back to a state of affairs that led to the Revolutionary War. In fact, it's worse - it's modern day feudalism. The bankers own the corporations who own the government who own us all. If the sheep ever wake up in a significant number, the oligarchs, including the Walton family should fear for their lives. There is no reasoning with the masses once they come to the full realization that they are being treated like farm animals.
Amen, Brother.
Add McDonald's to that mess and you have a real Witches brew
Can I be the rooster?
Is there any non-financial corporation in America that is more hated than Wal-Mart? This book should be required reading before criticizing such a great American company. http://www.amazon.com/Sam-Walton-Made-In-America/dp/0553562835
I do seem to recall years ago the Wal-Mart mantra of "Buy American". "We will buy only Made in USA."
What happened with that?
The fruit of central banking is always a mix between Biff's World and Pottersville
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7yhD6N4EIA
We are not far from this. Maybe a couple more harvests and plantings to go
Ignoring the Wal-Mart vitriol for a brief moment, say there was a guy who got sick in an office and the employees chipped in vacation time. Are you going to go after them and the employer there, too? Or let's say your management team hands out $1000 gift bonuses at the end of the year to all of the associates. Castigate them for their generosity? Take them to task for giving a shit about someone below them in the wage food chain?
How many of the anti-corporatists posting on this thread are invested in corporations and are counting on that for personal gain? You know who you are, you fucking hypocrites. Jeezez Christ, people, if I were a Wal-Mart associate and I wanted to contribute to an internal food bank, then I'll fucking do it without the morality and wage minders lecturing me. This whole raise the wage bullshit is from people who don't realize that if you have no fucking skill, you are not going to get a wage consistent with having skill to offer. Are the hypocrites on the thread employing the severely disabled? WHY THE FUCK NOT? One legged lesbian hookers employed in your business, chief? WHY THE FUCK NOT? Hire them and pay them this mythical "living wage" and you tell us, collectively, how that works out for you.
You didn't eat that.
Walmart will disintermediate the goods back to the shelves for a quick nickel. It's what we do, like the scorpion said to the frog.
Not sure what the big fuss is about? The Walmart workers don't need Thanksgiving dinner because they need to get to work so Amerikans can shop on that day.
Stock those shelves and scan those items, Mr and Mrs Main Street need to buy moar! No time for breaks let alone a proper Thanksgiving dinner. Slackers.
What really makes me angry and sick to my stomach is that I make a decent salary (Treading water), have good health care which I do pay for each pay period (for now), and play by the rules. But if I or my immediate family gets sick, I pay for it. When I go to purchase groceries, the person in front and the person behind me, who have two carts full of junk, has a plastic card with an American flag on it that pays their way. Where is my American flag card? I think that I am a responsible citizen by paying for my health care and auto insurance and taxes. We also pay into SS knowing full well that TPTB say that the funds won't be there when I reach retirement. Why do the people in the boat with me, the law abiding citizens, the people that work every day and pay taxes, get the shaft? Could go on and on, but what's the use...
Oh yea, The definition of Insanity...
Pardon me, I live in a different country but I gots ta know. How many dollars per week reside on said EBT plastic card? For a single male. And you may as well quote all the welfare mother figures too.
Over here, the dole is about a third of the average wage, meaning that even with 10 percent unemployment, only 3.3% of my wage is needed to support the single males. I call that cheap insurance. Of course, it isn't really that cheap. Rent subsidies, baby bonus (yes the fuckers pay people to fuck over here, increase the population and then complain about electricity and water shortages...), welfare mothers, admin and who-knows-what-else drive that figure who-knows-how-high.
Point being, I suspect that if someone uses EBT to buy caviar today, they should be starving for the rest of the week. Just curious as to whether I am right or wrong.
You are propping up the system. There is no virtue in paying taxes, it is simply giving money to the oppressors to fund your own oppression. You get the shaft because you take it and keep on taking it, going to work, following the "rules" etc. Start breaking the rules.
Work outside of the official economy. Take your money out of the banks and the "markets" and buy food, gold, guns. and ammo. Not only will you get a better return on your investment, you will deny the state that portion of income that they currently steal from you.
It is the "responsible citizens" who continue to believe in the legitimacy of the statist system that are most responsible for its continued existence.
and how much tax did Walmart avoid paying?!
I think it is shameful situation. These people need to leave these jobs, otherwise it is voluntary agreement with slavery
Is it time yet to divorce productivity from employment?
We should do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because, according to Malthusian Darwinian theory he must justify his right to exist. So we have inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors.
The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living.
Buckminster Fuller, 1981.
if they leave, 1000 others are waiting to take their place.
Minimum wages don't work?
Yeh, I guess that's why Australia has half the unemployment rate of the USA.
Three Waltons—Rob, Jim, and Alice (all children of Walmart founder Sam Walton)—own over 50% of outstanding Walmart shares. This fiscal year, Rob, Jim, and Alice (and the various entities that they control) will receive an estimated $3.1 billion in Walmart dividends on those shares.
If Sam Walton’s dependents actually worked for their Walmart dividend checks this year, they would be handed $1.5 million every hour. Meanwhile, Walmart workers get an average of $8.81 per hour and are routinely denied full-time work.[2]
Amid concerns about the fiscal cliff last December, Walmart moved up the final dividend payout of its fiscal year from January 2013 to December 2012 to avoid a possible increase in the tax rate on dividends. As the company’s largest and wealthiest shareholders, the Waltons were the biggest beneficiaries of the move.
Most Walmart workers can only dream of making $25,000 in a year. Meanwhile, the Waltons get $25,000 per minute from their Walmart dividends alone.
Thank you for that vxpatel. Sincerely.
This is the trend. A national homebuilder here in town is asking their subcontractors to supply items to put into the builder's employee's Xmas gift bags. It's not enough that they beat up the subs on pricing, now they guilt them into giving gifts to their employees. Obamanomics is here, and it aint pretty.
I just hope all those subbies sign their gifts, "Love from ..."
wages are not arbritary numbers. these are low skilled positions that command such a wage. Walmart is not to blame for the high cost of living that engulfs america.
So, what is so special about the "associates" that manage to not only live on such a "pitiful" income, but actually have saved enough to be able to give some to other associates who - presumably did not save enough?
This entire story reminds me of one of my first employment experiences where a co-worker went to the boss to ask for a raise. "Why do you think you deserve a higher pay rate?" he was asked. "Because I can barely make ends meet. I have student loans, a mortgage that's just barely affordable, and my wife is pregnant with our second child.". To me, these seemed like reasonable circumstances to consider a pay increase.
But, to my surprise, the boss said, "not my problem. You have to lay in the bed you made." It sounded harsh, but the reality of that statment was crystal clear. An employee who mismanages his personal affairs to the point that they need to go to their employer to seek help will only be enabled by a higher pay grade. In other words, if the co-worker had said that he's been increaseing output, productivity, and value for the company, then YES, that would be a qualified reason for an increase. But what happens outside of work, is of no consequence to the pay scale. I couldn't agree more.
The fact that some WM employees are able to make due with the low pay rate, while others need all types of help, tells me more about the associates than it does about WM. At some point, responsiibility lands in the lap of the individual. If you can't make ends meet with the value your employer sees in your services, either increase your value to him, or find another employer who recognizes your additional value. If you can't find such an employer, chances are it's not them, it's you. You think you're worth more than you really are.
"Aren't I nice for encouraging Fred to buy my stuff and give it to Mary?"
The grizzle is that greed is being disguised as generosity. That is why the Waltons are richer than you.
Next we can cut the minimum wage so that the workers will be richer because they are poorer.
And next year we can encourage them to be twice as generous because there will be twice as many needy co-workers.
Yes, I really, really hope that the kindly spirited workers are awake enough to see what is really happening.
Do you church a lot or a little?