D.C. Council votes to Force Walmart to pay "living wage"--50% over minimum wage.

Originally posted by benrl

Yea there's level of survival I could manage as well on minimum wage, I call that homeless or starving, because at that rate your gonna have to chose.

I edited my above post to reflect more info. That 16.000 dollar condo I bought 12 years ago could still have been paid for with minimum wage. Now it's worth 40.000 dollars. I just have to pay maintenance fees which are below 300 dollars, water and electricity included.. and no, it's not in the slums, it's in the middle of Metairie a large suburb of New Orleans not far from our lake (about 2 miles) My wife does work a minimum wage job - she buys the food and I pay the condo fees and everything else. Together we make less than 12.000 a year. I can easily see a normal couple making it on minimum wage if they know how to use the finances wisely.

Originally posted by olaru12
WalMart and SamsClub should be replaced by companies that actually make a profit AND treat their employees fairly.

Like this one where I shop, Although I prefer mom and pop operations but most of them have been forced out of business by the like of Walmart.

www.businessweek.com...

The Walmart greedy corporate model is obsolete and unnecessary.
money.cnn.com...

edit on 30-7-2013 by olaru12 because: (no reason given)

Like Costco!

I love going to Costco, it's like a treasure hunt and feast all in one. I can get big purchases cheaper, with an awesome return policy. They also pay their employees better, and it shows. I don't see the "Walmart Stare" (that soul-less, dead, kill me now look) with Costco employees.

They also carry (sometimes) those Carnegie Deli pickles. Mmmmm.

Originally posted by littled16
reply to post by MuzzleBreak

 

All this will do is cause Walmart to move their businesses elsewhere, taking the jobs they brought with them. I'm sorry but all this will do is hurt the people by taking away jobs in an already struggling jobs market.

If Walmart was to move out then most of the companies that they ran out of business will open back up. Getting rid of the small town killer is the best thing a city can do.

Originally posted by JohnPhoenix

Originally posted by benrl

Yea there's level of survival I could manage as well on minimum wage, I call that homeless or starving, because at that rate your gonna have to chose.

I edited my above post to reflect more info. That 16.000 dollar condo I bought 12 years ago could still have been paid for with minimum wage. Now it's worth 40.000 dollars. I just have to pay maintenance fees which are below 300 dollars, water and electricity included.. and no, it's not in the slums, it's in the middle of Metairie a large suburb of New Orleans not far from our lake (about 2 miles) My wife does work a minimum wage job - she buys the food and I pay the condo fees and everything else. Together we make less than 12.000 a year. I can easily see a normal couple making it on minimum wage if they know how to use the finances wisely.

My high-deductible hosp/surg insurance runs $9K/yr.

Originally posted by Metallicus
Here's a fact for all of you that think this is a great idea.

If you force businesses to pay a living wage the prices go up to cover those new increased cost and all of a sudden the new living wage is too little again. You can't legislate a country into prosperity.

Economics 101.

Why not? The lobbyists for the likes of Walmart legislated us into poverty.

I don't like it but, as long as lawmakers are in the pockets of corporations, I don't pity nor judge any law taken to force big business to play fair or to have ethics.

Originally posted by buster2010

Originally posted by littled16
reply to post by MuzzleBreak

 

All this will do is cause Walmart to move their businesses elsewhere, taking the jobs they brought with them. I'm sorry but all this will do is hurt the people by taking away jobs in an already struggling jobs market.

If Walmart was to move out then most of the companies that they ran out of business will open back up. Getting rid of the small town killer is the best thing a city can do.

Exactly. It's so weird how an entity like Walmart can monopolize an entire city and then somehow trick the people living there into actually mourning and fearing their departure! Insanity.

Well, the unfortunate truth is that 4 / 5 Americans are close to poverty. I think the statistics are somewhere around 80% of Americans are living off of these kinds of jobs?

Yes, supply and demand has to be forgotten because if 80% of Americans went hungry, we would have a Civil War. It is more of an issue of extremely bad governance and corporate policy that led to this.

In a way, it is still supply and demand, see? Corporations are screwing Americans over in other areas by abusing the supply / demand formula, and the same goes with the government.

So paying living wages to 80% of America to avoid getting heads chopped off is a good deal, see?

This is interesting... I was thinking about this the other day when the fast food workers went on strike, that wages would have to be paid not based on simple supply and demand and skill but on more complicated factors....

To make up for corruption in the government and corporate world, as I am saying, nothing is done without a price, and the price you are seeing paid here is the result of other activities corrupt people have done

reply to post by buster2010
That would work, but unfortunately what Walmart will most likely do is move right outside of the legislated area- just far enough away that public transportation doesn't reach them so most employees wont be able to transfer. They will hire new employees at the lesser rate but they will consist of suburbanites who dont need the jobs as much as inner city people do. They will however stay close enough so as to keep away any smaller competition.

Originally posted by littled16
reply to post by buster2010

 

That would work, but unfortunately what Walmart will most likely do is move right outside of the legislated area- just far enough away that public transportation doesn't reach them so most employees wont be able to transfer. They will hire new employees at the lesser rate but they will consist of suburbanites who dont need the jobs as much as inner city people do. They will however stay close enough so as to keep away any smaller competition.

Really? Because of what this company might do we continue to let them treat people like crap?

How insane is that, that we have gotten to the point where Banks are to big to fail, and companies like walmart can hold us hostage over the threat of what they might do?


ETA: We sound like battered wives, Please mister corporation we will listen this time...

Living wage? 40k a year is hardly a living wage in the most expensive city in the country. I guess dc residents will have to keep spending their money in md and va at walmarts.

reply to post by buster2010


Awesome, Buster. I am a big fan of local businesses. Think about it - if Wal Mart leaves, the guy selling guns in the back? He could open up his own gun store. The guy selling video games? He has enough experience to open up his own game store. The store manager?

He or she could open up his or her own variety store or grocery store! The janitors? They could open up their own janitorial services.

DC is crazy expensive to live in, but the politicians and federal workers are compensated enough to live there, or in the suburbs. The support services (gas station attendants, waiters, ect) make far, far less. How are they supposed to get by in such an expensive city?

The cost of living index should be taken into consideration here. I think states should use a sliding scale when it comes to determining their minimum wage. In some places (like the South) -- minimum wage might pay the rent on that double-wide trailer. In Oregon, their minimum wage might barley afford a studio apartment.

States (and maybe even individual cities) should slide the minimum wage to just under/at a "living wage", which could be determined by a committee and some studies. The more we raise up and bolster our middle class, the stronger, and less divided our country will become.

I met a dude in Boston that lived in a ONE ROOM apt. It had no kitchen, just a bed and a toilet. He was a bartender and made decent money. Granted, he was single, but he told me how much he paid. I was floored! He said paaaaarkin' (my Bostonian impression) was even more insane. I can concur, one hour in a garage cost me $27. They should have detailed the car and washed it for that price.

reply to post by benrl
Honestly, do you suggest that no jobs are better than low paying ones? I don't make their policy, it's just the way they work. As far as higher wages I don't feel most Walmart employees are any more skilled than your average burger flipper or grocery store cashier, so why should they make more money than those without specific skills in other businesses? I have 3 relatives that have worked for Walmart for many years and trust me- it would take all three of them to figure out how to balance a checkbook. Instead of making one big employer pay more it should be across the board for all minimum wage employees or not at all.

I have the solution!

Lets just replace all service industry and retail jobs with robots! Then no one will be able to argue or bitch about the wages!

I'm not sure what to do with all those unemployed workers, maybe send them to colonize Mars -- as that would be hard work...something they apparently need to learn how to do!

Originally posted by littled16
reply to post by benrl

 

Honestly, do you suggest that no jobs are better than low paying ones? I don't make their policy, it's just the way they work. As far as higher wages I don't feel most Walmart employees are any more skilled than your average burger flipper or grocery store cashier, so why should they make more money than those without specific skills in other businesses? I have 3 relatives that have worked for Walmart for many years and trust me- it would take all three of them to figure out how to balance a checkbook. Instead of making one big employer pay more it should be across the board for all minimum wage employees or not at all.

There is this false perception here that asking walmart to pay something reasonable, would bankrupt them.

IT won't, it will simply mean their profits are slightly less, there are employers out there that already do this, in which Walmart is in direct competition with.

Instead of being forced to innovate on the free market they whine to the US for exemptions with threats of job losses, stop Subsidizing walmart and companies like it.

We already do it with a minimum wage that is kept artificially low and out of line with inflation, Stop believing the don't mess with us or we will cut jobs line.

The reason the whole economy is this bad is from government tampering, its snowballed to the point where we have helped companies to the determent of all.

We surely do have a lot of people here who think they can out-think "supply and demand" with their own wage and price controls. Guess that's why socialists get elected. I'm guessing D.C. is gonna be out of a bunch of jobs, and the folks there will have to take the bus to get to a Walmart.

Originally posted by Metallicus
Here's a fact for all of you that think this is a great idea.

If you force businesses to pay a living wage the prices go up to cover those new increased cost and all of a sudden the new living wage is too little again. You can't legislate a country into prosperity.

Economics 101.

Walmart made a PROFIT of FIFTEEN BILLION last year. Are you saying the owners couldn't survive on just 14 billion for that year and used one billion so that the workers didn't have to be paid at poverty level? This is exactly where the system has been failing us since the day we claimed our independence.

Originally posted by MuzzleBreak
We surely do have a lot of people here who think they can out-think "supply and demand" with their own wage and price controls. Guess that's why socialists get elected.

I'm guessing D.C. is gonna be out of a bunch of jobs, and the folks there will have to take the bus to get to a Walmart.

In its current form? You mean the system that needs the Fed to pump Billions into it monthly?

How about we get back to Tariff reform to start with, that's the first step in removing the government intervention that caused these problems in the first place?

All that would happen is the economy would shrink back to the pre walmart days, where you had small business prevalent.

The whole problem starts with the government trying to mess with the economy in the first place.

Im more of a free market capitalist, no government tax breaks to make money off other countries labor, but you can call it what ever buzz word you want to dismiss it.

Originally posted by MuzzleBreak
We surely do have a lot of people here who think they can out-think "supply and demand" with their own wage and price controls. Guess that's why socialists get elected.

I'm guessing D.C. is gonna be out of a bunch of jobs, and the folks there will have to take the bus to get to a Walmart.

Do you really think for a second that Wal Mart will cut off their nose to spite their face by leaving a profitable market???

Supply and demand is an equilibrium - it takes both supply and demand for it to function. Deregulation serves the supply part but is allowing the demand to atrophy.

reply to post by benrl
I don't know why you would think that i believe Walmart paying a higher wage would bankrupt them- I never alluded to any such thing, and honestly I could give a rats behind about Walmart. If the people who work for them agree to work for minimum wage that is their problem for thinking so little of their skills and talents or for not seeking to improve their knowledge to qualify for better jobs. The problem lies with the existence of an abundance of people who do not possess the ambition to do anything greater than work at a job that requires little to no skills.

As far as exemptions go, neither Walmart nor any other company should be exempt from the legislation that applies to any other company. McDonald's also has gained exemptions as well as many other large companies. Is it fair? Absolutely not, but people without skills who are desperate for employment would rather work at one of these places for little pay and no benefits than have no job at all. Principals do not keep a roof over your head.