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"Walmart's employees receive $2.66 billion in government help every year, or about $420,000 per store. They are also the top recipients of Medicaid in numerous states. Why does this occur? Walmart fails to provide a livable wage and decent healthcare benefits, costing U.S. taxpayers an annual average of $1.02 billion in healthcare costs. This direct public subsidy is being given to offset the failures of an international corporate giant who shouldn’t be shifting part of its labor costs onto the American taxpayers."
How many of these employees are full time? How many are single moms with multiple children? How many of these are men who have created multiple children out of wedlock with multiple women, and are payng MINIMAL child support but because of it get government assistance? How many of these moms are actually getting child support from the child's dad? How many are people who's spouse or significant other is in jail for shoplifting, drunk driving, murder, selling drugs, "__________", fill in the blank? How many of these people are new employees, finally just getting a job? How many of these people getting government help, have iPhones, instead of a basic low cost phone?
It's easy to say they have xx people working for them but they don't make enough to live on, but once you start delving into the specifics, things change. I am willing to bet, that if you looked into how many walmart employees are getting government assistance, VERY FEW are in fact single people living on their own without children, or are trying to support their spouse and children as the single breadwinner off of a minimum wage job.
In a civilized society, if someone is working hard and still can't feed their family, then, yes we are obligated out of shared humanity to see that they receive assistance. What would you rather see? Children starving to death like in the third world?
The answer is no, however it's not the job of government, it's the job of CHARITY.
Let's change the words welfare and section 8 to the word CHARITY, and see how many people ask to collect it.
The funny thing is, McDonald's is brought up, they actually pay decent. When it comes to crap jobs, they actually pay better, it is actually a lot of work. Ever see the employees running around in a McDonald's? It is a mad house.
A lot of lazy workers do.t like working there, along with the stigma of working in fastfood.
Compare the work ethic to someone you see at a Walmart. That is.why they get paid more.
Also as for priccing, whenever min wage went up, I know in movie theatres, food prices went up the immediate, next inventory week. Also people who had worked for awhile all get disgruntled because they earn a raise or two and were hardworkers, but new employees almost made the same. Could not afford to raise the wages of everyone at once, took awhile for everything to catch up.
Forgetting the hyperbole.....how am I subsidizing their profits?
If welfare and food stamps did not exist, the wages would be the same. People would be living more responsibly.
OMG! You said the (R)esponsibility word..
BAD BAD BAD.
How dare you tell someone that they should be responsible for their actions! It's your job to work, and help them pay for their bad decisions. Didn't you know that!
How can you possibly sit there at your computer that you bought with money you earned, and demand that someone else be held to the same standards you hold yourself! How dare you impose your standards on someone else. Now you shall have to pay more taxes to pay for their counseling sessions due to the fact their feelings have been hurt because of your denunciations of their choices in life.
And this practice, led by the Waltons, will be what eventually leads to the fall of capitalism as we know it in America.
This has nothing to do with the Waltons. And, actually, Walmart pays pretty good wages for that type of work. It is unskilled labor, after all.
What is leading to the "fall of capitalism" in America right now, in case you haven't noticed, is an all out assault on capitalism by the left, and is currently being accelerated by none other than Barack Obama and his obsequious followers who do his dirty work for free. Why do you think that Obama & Company supported the "Occupiers?" They are helping him to destroy what he despises: Capitalism.
Obama's tax increases on "millionaires [which by the way includes teachers] and billionaires" are designed to see that no one in America can become "rich," because the more you earn, the more will be taken away, and even your Capital Gains (which applies to anyone who invests any amount of their earnings) will be subjected to a 23.8% capital gains tax (up from 15%). This will make it extremely difficult for anyone to realize their dreams of becoming financially independent (wealthy) and able to retire early (or perhaps at all).
"The rich must pay their fair share" mantra is being carried by every Obama supporter no matter what income level, and is becoming a deafening sound heard on every liberal news channel. But "fair share" is never defined. It is whatever they want it to be at any time. It has no limit. Thus, taxes have now been increased dramatically on those earning over $400k ($450k for couples), yet we are still hearing that "the rich" are not paying their "fair share." Well, what is their "fair share?" They are already paying 90% of all taxes if you are looking at top earners.
This "class envy" is not good for America. But Obama doesn't care. That's what he wants.
We haven't been a capitalistic society in quite some time.
We're quasi capitalistic if push came to shove, but we are not pure capitalistic anymore.
The talk and trend seems to be moving towards communism..have government take over the means of production.
We're getting there slowly.
Then you'll get your "livable wage"; when government is your boss.
Ask anyone who fled the former Soviet Union about that. They have been warning us about what they see taking place here.
What is going to happen will be less of everything. Less innovation, fewer new productss for consumption (and there won't be buyers anyway), fewer "risk takers" (what would be the point?), and with ObamaCare, fewer doctors and health care professionals, lower quality of everything, and in short, lower standard of living and quality of life.
That will be Obama's legacy.
This "Obama bus" must be turned around. Unfortunately, because of the utter ignorance of so many, the low information voters of America have ensured that we won't see any improvement for at least two years (if we are very lucky) but definitely not for four more. And that is dependent on if America finally sees where we are headed between now and then.
Here's a question I've been asking 100 times on another current thread.
Now, if wages are so low at places like Macdonald's and WallMart that workers there need food stamps, then isn't this one big problem?
why should the taxpayer foot the wage bill?
why should the companies be allowed to pay so low?
what is the purpose of this system?
how about just a decent wage but no food stamps, make coming off welfare pay, surely this is the right solution?
If McDonald's charged for its food like Starbucks did, just so it could pay their employees more, would a lot of people eat there? Then you have to ask yourself why those workers can only get minimum wage jobs. Maybe the "government intervention" should have been when they were in school and the job at McDonald's should have been an after-school job. Maybe, single teenaged mothers should go back to being scorned rather than get sympathy and lionized by the media so they never get on the welfare track. I still say tell people they can't get any federal assistance unless they graduate high school. We're already feeding their kids at school.
OMG! You said the (R)esponsibility word..
BAD BAD BAD.
How dare you tell someone that they should be responsible for their actions! It's your job to work, and help them pay for their bad decisions. Didn't you know that!
How can you possibly sit there at your computer that you bought with money you earned, and demand that someone else be held to the same standards you hold yourself! How dare you impose your standards on someone else. Now you shall have to pay more taxes to pay for their counseling sessions due to the fact their feelings have been hurt because of your denunciations of their choices in life.
/sarcasm
I know.
I'm a horrible person for expecting people to live responsibly.
Exactly my point! And Walmart, by its employment practices, is the leading cause for this!
What are Walmart's "employment practices" that you seem to feel are destroying capitalism?
I have known many Walmart workers, having been self employed for nearly twenty years doing ceramic tile installations. Many of my clients had a family member (wife) working at Walmart, and I have asked them about it. They like Walmart, and they were being paid wages that they thought were good ($10/hr for the one lady). This was for less than full time work, but it was work she did to help with the family budget, and she enjoyed it, she said.
Walmart is welcomed in most communities (not by unions, obviously) because they contribute to the community, and wherever a Walmart Super Center is built, there are many other business that are brought in (more jobs). This includes other small shops, restaurants etc (Payless Shoe's, Radio Shack, Eddible Creations, Fashion Bug, Pappa John's, to name a few).
Walmart is not the scourge of America, and the concept of such super stores (the quantity buying and warehouse style retail store) helps American families stretch their budget.
Not everyone can afford shopping at Dillard's or Neiman Marcus (maybe you can).
I wonder if the first supermarkets to be built back when I was young, where mom didn't have to do her grocery shopping at several different stores (produce market, meat market, bakery, etc) but could find everything she needed at one store, caused as much controversy then as Walmart and Home Depot, etc. do today?
And by the way, you can't blame Walmart. You would have to go back further than Walmart who borrowed this idea from Sol Price in California, who founded the Price Club (we used to shop there). He was the originator of the warehouse idea. Next, Costco coppied the idea, and they eventually bought out Price Club. It was later that Sam Walton coppied the idea with Sam's Club, and Walmart. Home Depot was right in their early in the game back in the late 70's or early 80's, as well as Lowe's.
One of the co-founders of Home Depot has said that because of government regulations and economic policies since then, and especially since this administration, that they never could have started Home Depot and been successful today.
Government is the real fly in the ointment for American's and American business. Not the businesses like Walmart.
Last edited by nononsenseguy; 01-05-2013 at 07:15 AM..
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