Dependence on Food Stamps

[finehoe]

Wal-Mart's annual report, issued late last week, puts a different spin on things. Buried within the long list of risk factors disclosed to its shareholders--that is, factors "outside our control" that could materially affect financial performance--are these: "changes in the amount of payments made under the Supplement Nutrition Assistance Plan and other public assistance plans, (and) changes in the eligibility requirements of public assistance plans."

Wal-Mart followers say this is the first time the company has made a disclosure like that.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Plan, or SNAP, is the formal name for food stamps, which were slashed late last year and again this year by your Congress. The deal Congress reached on the farm bill and food stamps in January will cut an average $90 a month from the food assistance for 850,000 families. That's on top of the cut averaging $29 a month (for a family of three) imposed in November.

Wal-Mart says it gets more than half its sales from its grocery departments. Since low-income shoppers are a big part of its clientele, it's unsurprising that that squealing you hear is coming from its annual report. There's no indication that Wal-Mart executives stepped up to the plate during the debate in Washington to warn Congress off these cuts in assistance to its customers.

One interesting sidelight of Wal-Mart's disclosure is that it doesn't actually discuss how the company benefits from public assistance programs by sticking the U.S. taxpayer with the bill for keeping its workforce fed and clothed. As Barry Ritholtz observed in November, the retailer is one of the nation's biggest "welfare queens": In many states its employees are the largest group of Medicaid and food stamp recipients.

Who's paying for Wal-Mart's addiction to paying its employees less than a living wage? You are.

http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-walmarts-dependence-20140324,0,5452260.story#ixzz2xCPEYPRs

[fsquid]

I guess I don't understand the piling on Wal-Mart. The people working there and making the minimum wage have no marketable skills that would justify a higher wage. If they did, they'd be offered a job that paid more, and presumably they'd take it.

[pierre]

I guess I don't understand the piling on Wal-Mart. The people working there and making the minimum wage have no marketable skills that would justify a higher wage. If they did, they'd be offered a job that paid more, and presumably they'd take it.

Costco and Publix pay more for the same jobs. And it's not just low skill jobs like cashier and stock crew. It's management positions too.

[ben says]

I guess I don't understand the piling on Wal-Mart. The people working there and making the minimum wage have no marketable skills that would justify a higher wage. If they did, they'd be offered a job that paid more, and presumably they'd take it.

[copperfiend]

I guess I don't understand the piling on Wal-Mart. The people working there and making the minimum wage have no marketable skills that would justify a higher wage. If they did, they'd be offered a job that paid more, and presumably they'd take it.

serious??

[JHAT76]

I guess I don't understand the piling on Wal-Mart. The people working there and making the minimum wage have no marketable skills that would justify a higher wage. If they did, they'd be offered a job that paid more, and presumably they'd take it.

Costco and Publix pay more for the same jobs. And it's not just low skill jobs like cashier and stock crew. It's management positions too.

Then shouldn't the Walmart managers leave and get jobs at Costco and Publix?

[mbwright]

I guess we all should be paid what we are worth, but this does not always happen.  How many are overqualified/underemployed?  How many no longer have the field or industry in which they have the skills?

[fsquid]

I guess I don't understand the piling on Wal-Mart. The people working there and making the minimum wage have no marketable skills that would justify a higher wage. If they did, they'd be offered a job that paid more, and presumably they'd take it.

Costco and Publix pay more for the same jobs. And it's not just low skill jobs like cashier and stock crew. It's management positions too.

Comparing Wal-Mart to Costco in this regard is absurd. Sure, Wal-Mart pays people $8/hour and Costco pays $14/hour. But they aren't the same people. The person making $8/hour at Wal-Mart can't get the $14/hour job at Costco. Costco wouldn't hire them. If Wal-Mart doesn't hire them, nobody does.

Nobody makes $8/hour at Wal-Mart if anyone else thinks they're worth $9/hour or more.

[peestandingup]

I guess we all should be paid what we are worth, but this does not always happen.  How many are overqualified/underemployed?  How many no longer have the field or industry in which they have the skills?

Everyone who works full time should be paid a livable wage regardless & not have to rely on food stamps/other social programs just to get by. Especially at places like Wal-Mart who's founders have more wealth than the bottom 40% of americans combined.

Since we've let the corporate pigs rape & pillage our cities, destroy mom & pops, make ghost towns out of main streets all across the nation, etc, then the least they could do is pay. I mean if we're gonna get fucked anyway at least let us have the money to buy lipstick.

[pierre]

I guess I don't understand the piling on Wal-Mart. The people working there and making the minimum wage have no marketable skills that would justify a higher wage. If they did, they'd be offered a job that paid more, and presumably they'd take it.

Costco and Publix pay more for the same jobs. And it's not just low skill jobs like cashier and stock crew. It's management positions too.

Then shouldn't the Walmart managers leave and get jobs at Costco and Publix?

Some do. Publix gets managers from Winn Dixie too. Most that make the jump from either actually make more but have a lesser title.

[BridgeTroll]

I guess we all should be paid what we are worth, but this does not always happen.  How many are overqualified/underemployed?  How many no longer have the field or industry in which they have the skills?

Everyone who works full time should be paid a livable wage regardless & not have to rely on food stamps/other social programs just to get by. Especially at places like Wal-Mart who's founders have more wealth than the bottom 40% of americans combined.

Since we've let the corporate pigs rape & pillage our cities, destroy mom & pops, make ghost towns out of main streets all across the nation, etc, then the least they could do is pay. I mean if we're gonna get fucked anyway at least let us have the money to buy lipstick.

So... a high school senior, a single mother of three, and a retiree are all cashiers at Walmart... what is the "livable wage"?  Do you propose means testing?

[JHAT76]

I guess we all should be paid what we are worth, but this does not always happen.  How many are overqualified/underemployed?  How many no longer have the field or industry in which they have the skills?

Everyone who works full time should be paid a livable wage regardless & not have to rely on food stamps/other social programs just to get by. Especially at places like Wal-Mart who's founders have more wealth than the bottom 40% of americans combined.

Since we've let the corporate pigs rape & pillage our cities, destroy mom & pops, make ghost towns out of main streets all across the nation, etc, then the least they could do is pay. I mean if we're gonna get fucked anyway at least let us have the money to buy lipstick.

So... a high school senior, a single mother of three, and a retiree are all cashiers at Walmart... what is the "livable wage"?  Do you propose means testing?

Also, will there be price caps so Walmart can't raise prices to compensate for new wages? 

[peestandingup]

I guess we all should be paid what we are worth, but this does not always happen.  How many are overqualified/underemployed?  How many no longer have the field or industry in which they have the skills?

Everyone who works full time should be paid a livable wage regardless & not have to rely on food stamps/other social programs just to get by. Especially at places like Wal-Mart who's founders have more wealth than the bottom 40% of americans combined.

Since we've let the corporate pigs rape & pillage our cities, destroy mom & pops, make ghost towns out of main streets all across the nation, etc, then the least they could do is pay. I mean if we're gonna get fucked anyway at least let us have the money to buy lipstick.

So... a high school senior, a single mother of three, and a retiree are all cashiers at Walmart... what is the "livable wage"?  Do you propose means testing?

Also, will there be price caps so Walmart can't raise prices to compensate for new wages?

They won't have to raise prices because they're making hundreds of billions in revenue every year. And our law makers should make sure that doesn't happen (fat chance I know since bribes, er "lobbying" exists). They'll be just fine & I don't think any of the higher ups will be starving & can still swim in their vats of money like Scrooge McDuck. Like I said, this is the small price places like this pay for the reasons I mentioned.

Yet most people don't even bother to tie it all together, instead seeing people who rely on government social programs as parasites. I'm just saying, if you're some hardcore conservative & you're truly against those things, you better damn well never contribute to places like Walmart. Because they're the biggest Welfare Queens of them all. Which BTW happens to also be partly responsible for killing many local jobs in services, goods & manufacturing (and all the bad things that go along with that).

To answer BT's question, I don't know. Whatever pay scale it means that keeps up with inflation & general cost of living. I don't think anyone who wants to work full time should be living in the gutter, regardless of who they are. But obviously if you've got 12 kids & expect any job, full time or otherwise, to pay enough to live then that's probably not gonna fly. But that's an extreme example. The way things are currently, even a person who has just one kid can't live on these wages. Not with all things considered.

[BridgeTroll]

So under the scenario I proposed earlier you are advocating for means testing based pay.

So... a high school senior, a single mother of three, and a retiree are all cashiers at Walmart.

Clearly "general cost of living" is different for all three people... all performing the exact same job.  What about businesses that arent "making billions"?  Should they be forced to comply with the means testing wage scale too?

What about unintended consequences... such as... only hiring high school seniors and retirees because their wage will be means tested less than the mother of 3?

[ben says]

^ You're obviously missing the point. Sometimes when you can't admit you're wrong (or can't admit you've taken the lesser of two positions, ethically), you break it down into technicalities that have no bearing on the underlying initial post.