Dependence on Food Stamps

[BridgeTroll]

I am not missing the point.  I was responding to peestanding up... NOT the initial post.  So now its your turn to admit your wrong. 

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.

[tyrsblade]

Long time reader, first time poster. All the aggression directed at bridge troll and (he/she/it)  is making a good point. Each of those classes of individual have a different threshold at which a livable wage is identified.

and my two cents on the topic,

Walmart has been genius in there business plan. Sell shelf space , minimize wages and conquer competition. This is the embodiment of all that is taught in business school, "Maximize shareholder wealth'. There is no social imperative to make life better for others, only your shareholders. This is not intrinsically evil, quintessentially it self interest that drives a capitalistic society.

If a person is unhappy with their life they can change it. It requires education, technology and hard work. Our economy has become a knowledge based economy, the days of blue collar manufacturing are gone.

[fsquid]

They won't have to raise prices because they're making hundreds of billions in revenue every year.

you do know the difference between revenue and profit, correct?  Wal-Mart's margins are roughly 3% on Gross Revenue which is good, but not outlandish.

Wal-Mart's business model is minimizing cost in order to maintain low prices. Overpaying for labor is not part of that model. And paying more than $8/hour for people whose productivity is $8/hour or less is overpaying for labor.

What would you propose that Wal-Mart do? Understand that paying $10/hour to the same number of people that they now pay $8/hour is not an option. If they have to pay$10/hour, they'll hire better people and work them harder in order to get their money's worth.

[peestandingup]

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?

It wouldn't need to be that complicated if you're using general levels of inflation as a key. Go back a few decades when single income families were able to get by & apply it to today, instead of having to have two incomes as it is now to keep your head above water. There's a reason for this. Wages haven't kept up.

We can't allow places like this to have all the breaks, be able to outsource all the stuff they carry & then on top of it not pay their employees here anything, having it both ways. That's a great way to ruin your own economy & city fabrics. So unless they wanna start stocking their shelves with American made products, then paying their employees more should be their "penalty". Not a tall order IMO.

As far as local businesses, start ups, etc that aren't rolling in dough, that's probably a more complicated issue. But I will say that we should be actively encouraging that. Maybe we can take a fraction of the breaks we'd have given to huge corporate entities & apply them to local ones.

[finehoe]

It requires education, technology and hard work. Our economy has become a knowledge based economy, the days of blue collar manufacturing are gone.

"Education" won't solve everything.  A college-educated cashier isn't going to be paid more than a high-school drop-out cashier.  As long as these jobs do exist, the organization that pays them needs to stop pawning off part of the cost onto the taxpayers.

[tyrsblade]

It requires education, technology and hard work. Our economy has become a knowledge based economy, the days of blue collar manufacturing are gone.

"Education" won't solve everything.  A college-educated cashier isn't going to be paid more than a high-school drop-out cashier.  As long as these jobs do exist, the organization that pays them needs to stop pawning off part of the cost onto the taxpayers.

College educated with a fine arts degree pretty much guarantees you'll be bringing my order or ringing up my groceries for the foreseeable future.

[finehoe]

Walmart has been genius in there (sic) business plan. Sell shelf space , minimize wages and conquer competition. This is the embodiment of all that is taught in business school, "Maximize shareholder wealth'. There is no social imperative to make life better for others, only your shareholders. This is not intrinsically evil, quintessentially it self interest that drives a capitalistic society.

I have read endless tributes to Wal-Mart from "libertarian economists," who sing Wal-Mart's praises for bringing low price goods, 70 per cent of which are made in China, to the American consumer. What these "economists" do not factor into their analysis is the diminution of American family incomes and government tax base from the loss of the goods producing jobs to China. Ladders of upward mobility are being dismantled by offshoring, while cities issues IOUs to pay their bills. The shift of production offshore reduces US GDP. When the goods and services are brought back to America to be sold, they increase the trade deficit. As the trade deficit is financed by foreigners acquiring ownership of US assets, this means that profits, dividends, capital gains, interest, rents, and tolls leave American pockets for foreign ones.

This was a conscious choice, not some inevitable working of "the market".

[finehoe]

College educated with a fine arts degree pretty much guarantees you'll be bringing my order or ringing up my groceries for the foreseeable future.

And you apparently are perfectly content to help Wal-Mart pay their salaries via your tax dollars.

[BridgeTroll]

College educated with a fine arts degree pretty much guarantees you'll be bringing my order or ringing up my groceries for the foreseeable future.

And you apparently are perfectly content to help Wal-Mart pay their salaries via your tax dollars.

Is Publix or Winn Dixie paying higher than Wal Mart?  How about a Stein Mart cashier... or local 7-11?  Just who is paying better cashier wages than Walmart?

[tyrsblade]

And you apparently are perfectly content to help Wal-Mart pay their salaries via your tax dollars.

Actually, I'm completely in favor of gutting our welfare system (both corporate in the form of subsidies and Personal in the various forms it persists in government) and switching to a flat tax so that everyone top to bottom pays the same fixed %.

[tyrsblade]

College educated with a fine arts degree pretty much guarantees you'll be bringing my order or ringing up my groceries for the foreseeable future.

And you apparently are perfectly content to help Wal-Mart pay their salaries via your tax dollars.

Is Publix or Winn Dixie paying higher than Wal Mart?  How about a Stein Mart cashier... or local 7-11?  Just who is paying better cashier wages than Walmart?

I don't care, I did that once , long ago and decided it sucked. Got an education and training (on my own dime, cause you know a white male isn't going to get it any other way) and moved on from sub 20$/hour jobs.

[BridgeTroll]

College educated with a fine arts degree pretty much guarantees you'll be bringing my order or ringing up my groceries for the foreseeable future.

And you apparently are perfectly content to help Wal-Mart pay their salaries via your tax dollars.

Is Publix or Winn Dixie paying higher than Wal Mart?  How about a Stein Mart cashier... or local 7-11?  Just who is paying better cashier wages than Walmart?

I don't care, I did that once , long ago and decided it sucked. Got an education and training (on my own dime, cause you know a white male isn't going to get it any other way) and moved on from sub 20$/hour jobs.

Which is part of the point... many of us started as cashiers... it is a starter job.  It is and never was meant to be an occupation where you can raise a family and send the kids off to college.  Perhaps you move uop to a cashier supervisor and on to department and eventually store management.

[JHAT76]

Walmart has been genius in there (sic) business plan. Sell shelf space , minimize wages and conquer competition. This is the embodiment of all that is taught in business school, "Maximize shareholder wealth'. There is no social imperative to make life better for others, only your shareholders. This is not intrinsically evil, quintessentially it self interest that drives a capitalistic society.

I have read endless tributes to Wal-Mart from "libertarian economists," who sing Wal-Mart's praises for bringing low price goods, 70 per cent of which are made in China, to the American consumer. What these "economists" do not factor into their analysis is the diminution of American family incomes and government tax base from the loss of the goods producing jobs to China. Ladders of upward mobility are being dismantled by offshoring, while cities issues IOUs to pay their bills. The shift of production offshore reduces US GDP. When the goods and services are brought back to America to be sold, they increase the trade deficit. As the trade deficit is financed by foreigners acquiring ownership of US assets, this means that profits, dividends, capital gains, interest, rents, and tolls leave American pockets for foreign ones.

This was a conscious choice, not some inevitable working of "the market".

Jobs and stagnated wages to me are the biggest issue.  This is why the current Krugman/Keynesian devotees who say current inflation is no issue.  When looking at the true consumer needs (food, fuel, homes, etc) prices since 2000 have ballooned 50 - 100+%.  Then compare this to the fact that current wages are the same or worse than what you could get starting out even with a degree and it doesn't take long to see that what we are currently doing is not working.   How about this solution rather than forcing a min wage:

Perhaps corporate taxes could be radically lowered for companies that invest in domestic human capital. Were the nominal corporate tax rate 0% for companies that produce goods and services in the U.S. with U.S. workers, we might find such incentives yield significant employment dividends even as corporate tax revenues decline. (If more enterprises are launched and more people are employed, taxes will rise without needing to boost tax rates.)

[finehoe]

Perhaps corporate taxes could be radically lowered for companies that invest in domestic human capital. Were the nominal corporate tax rate 0% for companies that produce goods and services in the U.S. with U.S. workers, we might find such incentives yield significant employment dividends even as corporate tax revenues decline. (If more enterprises are launched and more people are employed, taxes will rise without needing to boost tax rates.)

"Tickle down" has been a failure, no need to double down on a policy that doesn't work..

[finehoe]

It is and never was meant to be an occupation where you can raise a family and send the kids off to college.

It may not have been "meant" to be that way, but it's the reality of today's economy: