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No you did not at all. I said according to the BLS 704k people in the US make min. wage. Of those at most 1/3rd of them earn min. wage and work full time.
Never did I say anything about Walmart specifically. My point was people who are working full time are not the people earning min. wage. It is people with part-time jobs. So by raising the min. wage to what you deem a livable wage you wouldn't be helping the majority of the people who need it, specifically those working part-time, which are the most likely to be earning the low hourly wages.
Quote:
Originally Posted by candycanechick
Personally, I believe that everyone willing to work 40 hours a week should be paid enough to live off of. What I've proposed, I would like to see happen, but am not holding my breath. I think there is a difference between asking a mom and pop shop to pay, and a HUGE corporation with 2.2 million employees.
Considering something that can really happen: I support the Walmart and McDonald's workers going on strike, unionizing, asking for regular set raises, and asking for more money. I think everyone should, but that's me. Many grocery/retail stores HAVE UNIONS.
Also, look a Kroger's. It's considered on of the top 10 biggest grocery stores.
Just because they are unionized doesn't mean you make a living wage. I worked at a union grocery store for 8 years through HS, college, and one year after. I made $9.50 an hour when I left (up from $5.15 when I started). One thing I did get the benefit of doing was paying 10 dollars out of my weekly paycheck to support the union though.
No you did not at all. I said according to the BLS 704k people in the US make min. wage. Of those at most 1/3rd of them earn min. wage and work full time.
Never did I say anything about Walmart specifically. My point was people who are working full time are not the people earning min. wage. It is people with part-time jobs. So by raising the min. wage to what you deem a livable wage you wouldn't be helping the majority of the people who need it, specifically those working part-time, which are the most likely to be earning the low hourly wages.
One of your articles did. (say 425k-475k workers from walmart)
Thing one, you were snappy about reloading the first page of this thread. Why should I go through tons of post to find an article you posted?
Thing two, the article did say that ~50% of Walmart workers required aid. (again I forget the exact wording)
I think you have reading comprehension skills. I linked 1 article, it said nothing about 50% of employees being on aid (even the Wisconsin study says only 3,200 required aid) if you use that as a proxy for all of Walmart then that would mean that Wisconsin had 6,400 employees that worked for Walmart.
Wisconsin has 85 Walmarts which means unlike most Walmart's that have 300 employees the Walmart's in Wisconsin have 75 per store...............
It also said nothing about min. wage. The only reason I linked the article is because it said the majority of Walmart employees are full-time (estimates I have seen are at 58%).
I honestly think you are getting min. wage and your "living wage" concept confused with each other.
I think you have reading comprehension skills. I linked 1 article, it said nothing about 50% of employees being on aid (even the Wisconsin study says only 3,200 required aid) if you use that as a proxy for all of Walmart then that would mean that Wisconsin had 6,400 employees that worked for Walmart.
Wisconsin has 85 Walmarts which means unlike most Walmart's that have 300 employees the Walmart's in Wisconsin have 75 per store...............
It also said nothing about min. wage. The only reason I linked the article is because it said the majority of Walmart employees are full-time (estimates I have seen are at 58%).
I honestly think you are getting min. wage and your "living wage" concept confused with each other.
I think we are looking at a different article that you posted.
You would have even more unemployed than you do now.
One last time: those worth $9/hr (or $11 or $20) are pretty much getting it already.
This is *arguable*, but difficult to argue due to the lack of "real" information.
I'm not sure how far I'm wanting to go into this discussion... but, first I'm going to make some assumptions: We both agree that there are people that work for retail (not management or commission positions) getting paid $11-$20/hour. We've seen many examples, and most of us seen to agree that an employee that has been a long term worker get's paid more than the guy who just go hired.
Ok so if we all agree with the above. Then, what about the case where that employee has to leave his job for some reason beyond his control? Ex, store cutbacks or closes.
That guy has to start at the bottom again. And many of you are going to say, well he can work hard and get a raise. But, many of us know that companies cap raises. Ex, only give some artificially set raise. So he is hired in at the bottom (as many company policies dictate), he may be doing the same job (say going from Penney's to Macy's) , but now he is getting paid less and has to wait out the company set raise to get back to where he was.
Now comes the load of people saying he should have done something to better himself while working. But, the Home Depot dude siting a person getting $18/hour (I think), in some places that's decent pay eg median household income. He has no reason to "better" himself.
The fact remains we are arguing about 3-4% of the hourly working population. The average wage for a full-time hourly employee at Walmart is $12.83 an hour.
Very few people are actually making minimum wage (1.2% of hourly employees).
12.83*40*52=$26,686.40
I saw this article, and your failing to mention a very important piece of it.
"Walmart's $12.78 figure probably presents a misleading picture of what store workers actually make. As the company itself notes, the $12.78 calculation excludes part-time workers, and it includes department managers who are paid hourly and probably earn a good deal more than cashiers, stockers and sales associates."
Your excluding part time workers, and including management.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mizzourah2006
If I have a wife that earns that as well we have a median level household income.
For someone with a limited skillset to marry another person with a limited skillset and have the potential to earn as much as 50% of the households in the US working a no stress job for 40 hours a week seems like a pretty awesome deal to me.
The people is single mom's are working these positions. Following this, let's skip the crap:
Option 1.)
Your going to say they choose to have kids. => I'm going to bring up people who think it's a good idea to bring up absence, and shun abortions. This is not the conversation we are having.
Point is: Walmart workers ARE single parents (not all, but a decent amount). That is not going to change anytime soon.
Option 2.)
There are plenty of people paying back student loan's that can not be discharged in bankruptcy working at walmart. This particular living issue isn't fixable either.
Point being: minimum wage workers have student loans. That is not going to change anytime soon.
I saw this article, and your failing to mention a very important piece of it.
"Walmart's $12.78 figure probably presents a misleading picture of what store workers actually make. As the company itself notes, the $12.78 calculation excludes part-time workers, and it includes department managers who are paid hourly and probably earn a good deal more than cashiers, stockers and sales associates."
Your excluding part time workers, and including management.
The discussion was about full-time workers. You keep changing the goal-posts here. You are saying that anyone that works full-time should make a living wage. Why would you include part-time wages with full-time employees?
So is it everyone should earn a living wage or just full-time employees?
Does the fact that 33% of these people are either 16-24 or over 65 matter to you?
Should a part-time 21 year old get 25k/yr? Or just a full-time 35 year old?
So only 67% of the people that work at Walmart fall into the group you are arguing for. If we work with your number that 50% of employees are on welfare (still don't know what article you are talking about, but let's work with it) that means 75% of the people who would qualify for welfare are on it. Do you honestly believe that is the case? Do you really believe that?
Have you ever worked at Walmart? Do you know anyone who does? I know a lot of people who do. 75% of their working adult population is not relying on govt. aid. It is closer to 10% which the Wisconsin article highlights. 75% is a problem, 10% may be a little bit of an issue, but closer to 20% of the population relies on govt. aid of some kind so I don't know that it is that crazy that essentially 1 in 4 part-time employees at Walmart does as well.
Quote:
Originally Posted by candycanechick
Option 2.)
There are plenty of people paying back student loan's that can not be discharged in bankruptcy working at walmart. This particular living issue isn't fixable either.
Point being: minimum wage workers have student loans. That is not going to change anytime soon.
Have a nice day.
You keep discussing min. wage. I have already shown you almost no one is making min. wage. You are arguing for 704k people in a workforce of over a 100 million. Why? Are you arguing low wages or min. wage? Which is it?
Last edited by mizzourah2006; 11-26-2013 at 11:19 AM..
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