Welfare in the US: Just the facts. (leader, retirements, documents)
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Cant pay a livable wage to there employees? And if they do raise the wages for there regular employees then it will be reflected in raising the prices. Maybe instead of raising prices or corporate welfare, why not pay michael duke 25 million or the waltons be worth 145 billion and pay your employees a dollar or two more an hr? And have no effect on the retirees pentions.
Walmart has 2.1 million employees. This means if Duke was paid nothing and his salary was divied out to the rest of the employees a full time employee could be paid an extra $17 a year, 32 cents a week, .80 cents an hour. Yes, less than a penny an hour!
The reason CEOs are paid so much is because a 1% increase in employee productivity can equate to tens of millions of dollars.
Walmart is publicly traded. Their investors want their wealth to increase. Those investors include the Waltons.
If you destroyed the profit motive and gave every employee an equal share of Walmart's 25.74 billion dollar pretax income in 2013. It would be about $100 a month per employee. Of course there would be no Walmart.
See how InformedConsent justifies the gross behavior on the poor retirees pension benefits that rely on walmart stock and profits. What he ignores is Walmart CEO Michael Duke's $35 million yearly salary and the Waltons own over 50% of the company, and are worth a combined total of $152 billion (as of July 2014). But somehow they
Walmart is generally known as a stingy employer, so a $35 million annual salary raised a red flag to me. A quick search indicates that the $35 million is indeed an inaccurate number. If WMT hits certain goals then the executives will be able to exercise stock options, which bumps up their compensation, but that's a far cry a $35 million salary.
Now I did try to find out why you thought M. Duke was getting paid $35 million/yr, but the only thing I found was a reference to a Chicago alderman that was making the claim... Chicago aldermen are, let's say, less than honest.
C. Douglas McMillon, who became the president and CEO of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. of Bentonville on Feb. 1, saw his total compensation skyrocket 168 percent to $25.6 million for the fiscal year that ended Jan. 31 as compared with the previous year.
McMillon, who was an executive vice president during the fiscal year, received stock awards of $23 million during the fiscal year, according to the company's annual proxy statement filed with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission. The stock awards have not been paid yet, but they will be realized over three years if Wal-Mart hits certain goals.
...
The drop in stock awards caused Duke's total compensation to drop 72.7 percent to $5.6 million for the fiscal year that ended Jan. 31 as compared with the previous year. But he received another $2.9 million for exercising stock options in 2013. He was the only executive who exercised stock options during the year.
And that's where we have a conundrum in the case of Walmart... Low-income Americans need, want, and like Walmart's low prices, and Walmart's profits fund union pension benefits, etc. CalPERS (California Public Employees Retirement System), for example, owns about 5 million shares of Walmart stock. Walmart's profits (and those of all of the other corporations in which CalPERS owns stock) fund public employee retirees' pensions. The same is true of many other union pension systems and even individuals' 401Ks.
No profits = no pensions ...or no retirement account from which to draw when one no longer earns a salary.
As an actual low-income American, my take is that the "low-income class" is economically imploding, and Walmart is merely delaying our misery and ultimate destitution.
When people don't have to earn incomes, they are less likely to earn incomes or, at least, to earn incomes in legal and visible ways that could threaten their government benefits.
The more people who are in a non-income-earning mode, the greater the disparities with the incomes of those of us who have to work for a living, and who have to earn more to offset high tax rates.
Yet liberals often act as if welfare is an injustice to those who don't work, rather than an injustice to those who do work, and whose taxes support those who don't.
Welfare, with its time limits (TANF), merely delays the destitution of those who do not work and who do not acquire marketable skills. Insofar as welfare delays destitution it is a lot like Walmart.
Very true....but you know what happened with the welfare law changes in the mid 1990s...
After welfare benefits end....many roll straight into disability payments. The number of people on disability has more than doubled in the past 15 years since the welfare program changed.
What to bet there is a correlation between capping welfare benefits to the explosion of disability claims?
People have to realize the USA is the 3rd most populated country in the world. Yet it's "poor" live much better than the "poor" in the slums of China, India and Brazil.
But there comes a point where the country cannot afford to provide for everyone and the USA's "poor" may have to adjust to the poor conditions like they have in Brazil. I have been to Brazil. Go to the slums. See how other countries treat the poor.
I think you might be correct .It is only an impresssion ,but the Americans I have known seem to expect
a certain way of life as their 'right' . I would be happy if someone would give me 200+ dollars for food,
but I make do as I feel that is what we have to do ,but I would never ask. Unfortunately it is an
Not surprisingly, and brightest red states also have the most welfare recipients.
Sorry for the old thread rehash.
California sports almost 1/3 of all US welfare recipients and proportionally CA has 45% more people in poverty than Texas.
Further the states you are talking about Louisiana, Mississippi and a few others have very high percentages of racial groups that use proportionally more social welfare dollars.
CalPERS owns 5 million shares of Walmart stock, among other investments in corporations, to fund union members' pensions. Lets just eliminate all union pensions, private and public, to end their dependency on corporate profits.
CalPERS owns 5 million shares of Walmart stock, among other investments in corporations, to fund union members' pensions. Lets just eliminate all union pensions, private and public, to end their dependency on corporate profits.
Sigh. and your point is? Other then railing against unions, etc....that somehow Walmart is what?
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