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No the economically desperate have always gone to Walmart.
Those that cut back buy in bulk now. I do rather than buy certain boxed items at my supermarket.
The cheerios 2 pack is cheaper there then the single box at my supermarket.
The case of campbell's soup is cheaper.
I shop at both but Costco is just every couple of months.
I stopped shopping at Walmart when they dropped the Made in the USA campaign.
And I would eat a thing that came from the Walmart food section.
Fine... you've created a scenario that justifies how you think Walmart & Costco operate. How does that explain why Costco pays its workers 70% more?
Fine... you've created a scenario that justifies how you think Walmart & Costco operate. How does that explain why Costco pays its workers 70% more?
Costco makes more money.
2011 sales +7%
Plus they have additional revenue of membership fees.
And they run a wholesale warehouse type of operation which is different model than Walmart stores so I imagine their operating costs are lower than Walmart.
It would be a better comparison to do Costco vs Sam's Club
or Walmart vs Target.
You are comparing salaries of two different types of retail outlets here.
I won't speak to manufacturing, but in service industries it's crystal clear that better compensation = better service, which increases sales.
On one hand, you have an entity like Spirit Airlines, which offers horrible customer service but extremely low a la carte pricing (pay for what you use). The cost benefits for being treated like crap are worth it to budget travelers. Their pilots make a pittance as do other staff (save the executives, of course).
OTOH, you have Nordstroms, which is routinely lauded for its high level of customer service. Their consumers are not budget conscious and it's no coincidence Nordstrom staff is the among the highest paid in every survey on retail compensation.
So it's easy to see at the extremes. It's in the middle where the cost-benefit of higher wages gets confusing. And it's also in the middle where most companies have difficulty surviving as many haven't effectively communicated whether they're budget or service oriented and usually overpromise one or the other without delivering.
2011 sales +7%
Plus they have additional revenue of membership fees.
And they run a wholesale warehouse type of operation which is different model than Walmart stores so I imagine their operating costs are lower than Walmart.
It would be a better comparison to do Costco vs Sam's Club
or Walmart vs Target.
You are comparing salaries of two different types of retail outlets here.
Avg Sam's club wage: $11.50/hr.
Avg benefits coverage: 64%
Happy?
Or if you want to stay w/ Walmart, the skill sets need to work at Walmart, Sam's Club, and Costco are the same. They are pulling from the same labor pool which means "laws" of S&D for their wages are the same. According to capitalism, there's no reason why Costco should be paying more for their workers, yet they willingly do.
Costco charges their customers more so they can pay their employees more. Walmart has a different business model.
Well that's impressive. In the span of 5-6 posts, you've gone from being an advocate of market wages/S&D to a believer of paying employee's a fair wage based on a company's revenue...
At this rate, you'll be re-registering as a Democrat by morning.
What does the private sector do to promote increased wages?
Hey, I'm an employer in the private sector, I'll take a stab at it.
I hired a young man in late 2009 for $10/hour, light office work on a full-time temp basis. I pretty quickly learned that he could be trained to do complex analytics and statistical work that my business requires, and gave him a raise to $2,000/month. Then I encouraged him to become credentialed, provided the time for him to study, paid his exam fees. After a year on the job he got a raise to $3/k month. He'll be at $50k in 2013.
Having neither the interest or desire to get to higher levels, he has spurned my offer to further improve his credentials or elevate his duties to include more valuable tasks. I have done everything in my power to make him as valuable as he is willing and able to be.
I am no philanthropist, and this job is not some twisted form of charity. Everything I have done is intended to improve my own wealth and income--and it has. The more valuable this employee is to me, the more valuable I can be to my customers. And my value to my customers directly impacts the revenues they will pay me.
Moral of the story: the value of an employee to an employer rests mostly in the hands of the employee. It is not possible for me or any employer to pay an employee less than the value of their time--or they will simply sell it to another employer for that higher market price. Every employer I know wishes that each employee were more valuable than they are--not so they could pay more, which they would do, but so that they would make more money.
Like it or not, the gov't is the best positioned to encourage or push wages up.
More support for unions on the state & federal level
increased minimum wage (short contraction, but would rebound hard due to increased supply of people w/ $)
direct or subsidized competition for skilled workers
control of insourced and outsourced labor
If we had middling profits, even steady profits over the last 30 years, I'd say you had a case. Instead, profits have skyrocketed over that time. Even if you believe that there are just too many workers, why are you rooting for employers in their race to the bottom in wages for employers. There's more than enough profit to justify giving the common worker a little bigger piece of the pie. No one's saying they need to make as much as an executive, or that a CEO needs to earn the same as the janitor, but there's no reason why anyone who's employed 40 hrs/week should be on welfare.
If you want to believe that it's the executives who know what it takes to improve productivity on the shop floor, or who came up w/ the ad campaign for the most interesting man, or designed the iPad... have at it. Ideas get fed up the food chain far more than they get dictated down. To think otherwise is to have a damn-near fanatic belief in the creative power & ability of the people at the top.
That's not that hard to believe since I'd bet a lot of those people either work for Walmart, or were put out of business by Walmart.
I'm not watching that b/c it's probably some stupid video of some nobody saying something stupid. You should be operating at a higher level than that.
Are Costco & Walmart targeting different skill sets? Operating under different market rules? Facts do not support your premise.
The value that a Costco employee brings to the employer is obviously worth the wages they earn.
You cannot fake it.
A business is not in business for charity.
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What does the private sector do to promote increased wages?
