[Cid_Yama]

Friends with Low Wages

Just wanted to introduce this to those who haven't seen it.

[onlooker]

Yea, their the company all other companies wish to emulate. Wonder why?

[Cog]

No one is forcing them to work there. Don't like the pay, go elsewhere.

A corporation acts in a way to maximize profits. It does not exist to maximize your wages. As a stockholder, I would expect a corporation to cuts costs anywhere they can to maximize my stock returns.

[Sixstrings]

Well Cog I've been with you on other issues, but I have to side with Cid on this one.



I don't like too much political correctness and Walmart and Apple Corporation trying to control their customers' personal lives, but if corporate responsibility and social awareness can get them to to do good things in the world that are real and not just digging up someone's great grandfather -- then that's a good thing, I agree with that.

Historically, there was a time when corporations DID in fact think about social responsibility. Because corporations recognized they are leading institutions in society, bigger than and more powerful than government or the church or any other institution in society.

Walmart bent a bit, recently, and announced it is going to raise wages by a dollar or something like that. It's a move in the right direction, though some say Walmart engaged in false advertising when they then did a media blitz touting that they pay living wages.

The Better Business Bureau has now referred Walmart to the FTC for false advertising:

Walmart ‘Raise In Pay’ Commercial Sent To FTC For Review After Concerns From National Advertising Division

The National Advertising Division of the Better Business Bureau said Thursday it referred a commercial from Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to the Federal Trade Commission after the retail giant declined to participate in a review of the advertisement’s claims.

The commercial, “Raise in Pay,” was released earlier this year and touts Walmart’s stated commitment to offering living wages, employee education and training programs, but NAD said it had questions about whether the 30-second spot implied that Walmart was actually raising employees’ pay to the extent that they could support themselves and their families.

Set to a soothing melody of piano and string music, the commercial features a cheerful montage of Walmart employees enjoying their everyday lives as a golden-voiced announcer talks about the importance of earning a living wage and raising a family. The commercial ends with the claim, “We are investing over $1 billion this year in higher wages, education and training.”
http://www.ibtimes.com/walmart-raise-pay-commercial-sent-ftc-review-after-concerns-national-advertising-2012736

One of Walmart's "living wage" ads:

Raise in Pay - Walmart TV Commercial
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZacZ_sUxW_w

That's a nice feelgood ad, that could be a union ad -- but false advertising is actually illegal, walmart can't advertise it's paying "enough to live on" unless it actually is.

The weirdest thing about that above tv ad, is how they highlight the "15" sign (register light) -- this ad ran in the middle of the "fight for $15" stuff. So that's false advertising, Walmart's not actually FOR a $15 minimum wage. Or if they are, they should do a press release about that and say it explicitly. Otherwise, all they're doing pay wise is going from like $7.50 an hour to $8.50 an hour or maybe it was nine bucks, I forget the number.

But it's still not a living wage.

And it's definitely not $15 an hour -- false advertising is illegal.

[edit: on the other hand, actually Walmart did a lot there to further the "$15 min wage" issue -- that ad is actually a very good ad, it may as well be a Bernie Sanders ad (the slogan in the ad is "a raise in pay raises us all").

Things are complex, walmart may not be an all bad guy, one has to scratch one's head a bit at these ads they ran but they were actually helpful to the working class cause.]

[Sixstrings]

But of course, the truth about all these things is that it's complex.

So I'll argue a bit of devil's advocate..

I actually like to shop at Dollar Tree. I LOVE Dollar Tree, and buy everything there that I can buy there, versus other stores (for most hosuehold products).

I get my pinesol there, my bleach, kitchen stuff, laundry detergent and toiletries (everything from soap and razors to shampoo).

What costs $4 at another store, costs $1 at dollar tree. A lot of times, there's some weird thing you may need and it's five bucks at any other place and only a dollar at the dollar tree.

So.. in the case of dollar tree.. they actually can't pay their workers more than what they do.

So it's not an easy issue, I do admit that, I'd say dollar tree saves me at least fifty bucks a month and I just like a bargain and I'd hate to see that go away.

But there's probably a balance to be found.. as it stands, right now the USA is the top in income inequality, along with Russia and Ukraine and Lebanon.

[Sixstrings]

By the way I looked it up, walmart said it was going to raise wages to $9 an hour by next april, then $10 an hour the year after that:

Walmart Raises Hourly Wage | msnbc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VXFGB5IbEc

Minimum wage should be $15 an hour, step it up to that over several years. But Walmart deserves a little credit for doing a little bit of something, another $320 a month in working class pockets is actually a significant amount.

Ultimately, walmart may have done this as a business decision, cost benefit analysis of being the "bad guy" all the time and costco -- which is outcompeting them on every metric -- being the "good guy."

Maybe walmart decided it's not really a good idea to have Bernie Sanders yelling about the greed of Walmart, in every speech, for a year.

[Sixstrings]

This is a good video, if Walmart paid its employees enough so that they don't need food stamps from the government, then costs passed to the customer would only be 1.4%.

A box of 68 cent mac and cheese would only go up to 69 cents, according to the video:

If Walmart Paid Its Employees a Living Wage, How Much Would Prices Go Up?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAcaeLmybCY

The video says that 15% of walmart employees in Ohioa (one state example) are on food stamps. If Walmart raised wages, it would save the federal gov $15 billion a year in food assistance benefits to walmart employees (nationwide).

The really astounding number though is overall foodstamp expenditure by the government -- $76 billion a year!

With a $15 dollar minimum wage, that would not only save the federal gov tens of billions of dollars but you could also cut back on the earned income tax credits for poor workers. And also, at $15 an hour, many more working class would become tax PAYERS. Money going into the social security fund would also increase quite a bit.

The $15 minimum wage solves a LOT of problems, not to mention getting money flowing into main street and not just wall street. It's good for everyone, except the super rich will lose a bit.

Of that $76 billion in federal food stamps, walmart collects 18% of all those dollars. So, it makes one wonder there, does walmart have a vested INTEREST in the status quo of poor workers in America? Passing the cost of its employees, onto government, and then also profiting from government (and all taxpayers) with so many poor people using food stamps at walmart?

Sanders to push $15 minimum wage bill

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is pushing new legislation to raise the minimum wage for all workers to $15 an hour.

The Democratic presidential candidate, who has made addressing income inequality a centerpiece of his campaign, will introduce the minimum wage bill Wednesday. Sanders has long called for a $15 minimum wage, but this is the first bill he is introducing to do so.

Reps. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) and Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) will join Sanders at the press conference Wednesday, and are also expected to introduce identical legislation in the House.

It’s believed to be the highest minimum wage that has ever been proposed by legislation in Congress.

“The simple truth is that working people cannot survive on the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, or $8 an hour or $9 an hour,” Sanders said recently. "If people work 40 hours a week, they deserve not to live in dire poverty.”

Sanders' bill comes as low-wage food service workers and janitors at the U.S. Capitol plan to strike on Wednesday.

The legislation would raise the minimum wage in increments until it reaches $15 an hour by 2020.

Democratic 2016 frontrunner Hillary Clinton backs raising the minimum wage and spoke at a rally with groups who back $15-an-hour, but has yet to officially endorse that figure. Former Gov. Martin O'Malley (D-Md.), another contender, backs a $15 minimum wage.

Sanders' minimum wage bill would go a step further than one proposed earlier this year by fellow Democrat Sen. Patty Murray (Wash.), who suggested raising it to $12 an hour.
http://thehill.com/regulation/legislation/248517-bernie-sanders-to-push-15-minimum-wage-bill

[Cog]

The minimum wage needs to be abolished. Being paid for what you are worth to your employer is a much better system. You, as an employee, are in complete control of that situation. Good employees get more money, average ones get less, and bad ones get the boot to the curb. Totally within your own hands.

What a $15/hr minimum wage will do is destroy jobs and companies will go to mechanization to replace those humans with machines. Machines don't complain and they don't get paid over time. The fast food industry is already going this way and this move to higher wages will only increase the trend.

Enjoy your $15/hr wage when you are sitting at home unemployed. Because you definitely earned it.

[SeaGypsy]

Yeah 6, but the folks making all that stuff you love in dollar tree but resent in Walmart get paid 10 times less. The door greeter at Walmart would be earning as much as a factory manager in China.

[Sixstrings]

Yeah 6, but the folks making all that stuff you love in dollar tree but resent in Walmart get paid 10 times less. The door greeter at Walmart would be earning as much as a factory manager in China.

If they raise the minimum to $15 over five years then that's not radical.

The thing is, SG, in the US the congress used to just raise the minimum wage ever five years or so. There would always be a bit of delay on it, and pushback from Republicans, but then they'd raise it and it would more or less keep up with inflation.

Then, like ten or fifteen years ago, they just stopped raising it. (GOP congress)

So.. $15 stepped up over several years is actually just taking it to what wages were in the 90s -- accounting for inflation.

So, I just don't even see a debate on this at all, the simple matter is that on the wages issue, the right wing just went too far for too many years depressing working class wages.

[SeaGypsy]

Where you are blindsided 6 is in US manufacturing setting default baseline wages whilst having no choice but to become increasingly competitive with China. Wage disparity in the US isn't being made better by becoming less competitive.

[Cog]

The right wing didn't suppress anything. A company is free to pay whatever amount it wishes above the current minimum wage. Minimum wage jobs were never designed to pay a living wage, whatever that means. They were meant as an entry level job into the corporate world. If you are still making minimum wage after being with a company more than a couple of years, you are simply lazy or functionally retarded.

[ralfy]

The right wing didn't suppress anything. A company is free to pay whatever amount it wishes above the current minimum wage. Minimum wage jobs were never designed to pay a living wage, whatever that means. They were meant as an entry level job into the corporate world. If you are still making minimum wage after being with a company more than a couple of years, you are simply lazy or functionally retarded.

The catch is that the corporate world needs wage levels to remain as low as possible across the board to increase profits, which in turn makes investors happy. The solution is to increase productivity.

Another catch, though, is that workers are also consumers, which means if wages are not high enough then sales do not rise as much, which in turn affects profits.

With that, we see that it's not a matter of being lazy or "functionally retarded" that wages are kept low. Capitalists need to keep wages as low as possible to maximize profits but not too low such that sales do not go up. It also helps if more of their wealth comes from returns on their investments than from their salaries.

Additional credit is provided by banks, which can only earn money by lending more money. They lend to businesses to increase expansion while lending to consumers to increase sales. The result is not only increasing productivity and consumption of goods but also debt.

[hvacman]

Jeez, I get tired of hearing forum members assume that corp. world's primary way of controlling costs and maximizing profit is by keeping wages low....This shows such an extremely-poor understanding of how successful businesses actually run...

As an example, NY is now trying to get all franchise fast-food restaurants to pay a "living wage", using the argument that these fast food are mega-corporations with huge profits and can afford to pay more. This shows a complete mis-understanding of the franchise model. I do engineering for local franchisees of several national fast-food chains. I've seen first-hand how the business works. McDonalds doesn't pay the restaurant employees. The franchise owner does. Most franchise owners are small businesses, owning a handful of local restaurants. They have to tailor their labor cost structure to their locale. They have to pay for building/maintaining their buildings. As part of the franchise agreement, they have to remodel (at their expense) to the new McD's themes when McD's determines it. They have to buy the new kitchen equipment from McD's when the menu changes. They have to sell certain products at the nationally-advertised prices. Taco Bell, KFC, BK, Subway, they all are structured similar. It's a tough game. And now NY wants to tell them to give all employees a 50% raise - a "living wage", because their franchisor is making too much money from all the franchise fees and bulk product sales receipts they get from their franchisees. If I owned a Mc'D's franchise in NY, I'd be finding out right now how McD's is doing on developing their franchise-approved automatic hamburger patty-flipper/mayo squirter/burger wrapping machine, online ordering apps, etc. Yeah, they'll pay a living wage...to the few actual living human employees they have left in the restaurant. I fully expect that within 10 years, many fast-food restaurants will have "AFM's" - automated food service machines. Slide your debit card, place your order - in very short time, your to-go bag pops out with your order. "Would you like your meal receipt e-mailed or printed?"

[Outcast_Searcher]

Jeez, I get tired of hearing forum members assume that corp. world's primary way of controlling costs and maximizing profit is by keeping wages low....This shows such an extremely-poor understanding of how successful businesses actually run...

Talking logically about such issues doesn't do any good. Six and his ilk will ignore data and logic and economics and ramble on about what is "fair" and "reasonable" to them. (Much like the far right often ignores science and substitutes their intuition for what is "true" about issues like climate change or evolution.) In such cases, examples or further explanations do little to no good.

I say this of being guilty many times of trying to argue such points myself, by the way.

When the vast majority of the low skilled jobs at places like McDonalds are automated, and customers are happier and the franchises are more profitable, it will be interesting to see the far left "whining produces prosperity" crowd:

1). Blame big corporations, George Bush, and Ronald Reagan instead of themselves for the loss of the low skilled jobs.

2). Continue pushing for stupid policies (couched in terms of "fairness") which will lead toward the destruction of the moderate skilled jobs. (And blaming the ensuing problems on the most productive, as usual).