1.4% Price Rise Gets Wal-Mart Off Welfare

Te question I keep asking (here, here and here) is why are taxpayers subsidizing a giant, private, profitable company?

The video goes over the numbers, but here are is the one that jumped out at me:

Wage: $13.63/hour (based on a 30 hour work week)
Cost: $4.8 billion per year

If Wal-Mart Paid A Living Wage, How Much Would Prices Go Up?

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  1. NoKidding commented on Apr 16

    If price went up… AND volume stayed the same.

    Assumes inelasticity in retail :(.

    • Iamthe50percent commented on Apr 16

      I, for one, would not even notice a 1.4% price rise amidst the usual noise in prices. Oh! The $20 pair of pants is now 25 cents higher! I won’t buy!

    • NoKidding commented on Apr 16

      Supply and demand only works in one dollar increments?

  2. Bob K. commented on Apr 16

    It is a hamster wheel. How long before the cost of living matches the new living wage increase? Actually, price of products and services need to fall to match the wages paid. But that screws and banks, governments, and Wall street so doubtful it will happen voluntarily.

  3. pielou commented on Apr 16

    is there something that is not subsidize, bail out?
    bigger it is better it is, for example oil, bank, auto, airplane…

  4. LeftCoastIndependent commented on Apr 16

    Not just Walmart. Most other retail is just as bad. And don’t forget non union airlines, greasy spoon fast restaurants, and 50% of the other jobs created since 2008.

  5. SecondLook commented on Apr 16

    It is a hamster wheel. How long before the cost of living matches the new living wage increase?

    Not so. Think about it, if that were the case, then there would be no real growth income in the past.
    For most of American history, wages very obviously outpaced the rate of inflation (so much for the pernicious effect/excuse of “wage inflation”).
    Now if you’re saying, really meant, that these increases are a one time thing, and wages will be stagnant going forward as inflation creeps along – that is possible, but a whole other argument.

  6. Livermore Shimervore commented on Apr 17

    Let’s accept some realities (unlike Wal-Mart, the GOP, Megan McCardle, Fox “News” and the US Chamber of Commerce).

    1. Minimum wage increases are supported in blue and red states alike. The one thing they both agree on. Unfortunately just not the red state legislatures. If an increase does make it onto a red state ballot the red states pass it.

    2. If you accept #1 above, and are going to opt for a “living wage” (the whole point of minimum wage) then pay a living wage!! Otherwise abolish the minimum wage and let the free market pay the poorest workers even less while letting mega corporations like Wal-Mart reap the benefits of even cheaper labor. You the consumer benefit by paying 10 cents less for that box of processed gran, processed cheese and processed meat raised on GMOs. Hooray… But for God’s sake do one or the other, with the current miserly minimum wage you are neither here nor there.

    3. 90% of U.S. workers spend 100% of their income. Any increase in the minimum wage will be fast tracked directly into the economy where the multiplier is far greater than tax cuts. This is basic economic logic that everyone accepts but for political purposes the right wing resist. If the aim is to lift GDP in a way that raises the household networth as much possible, then arguing against raising minimum wage to — an actual living wage — is baseless. If minimum wage workers receive a pay hike all workers above them will ask for wage increases as well and that income too will poured right back into the economy. Thus instead of making wealthy inequality worse, we instead reverse it and GDP rises. But Mr. Smithers and the GOP don’t approve of this method. They insist that trickle down and tax cuts will eventually work… 20 years later the U.S. worker calls bullshit.

    Wal-Mart and the like fight the minimum wage because they do not want to spread the wealth back into the economy in a manner where they are not in control of it. But at the same time they want to be in control of the US tax payer’s wealth by having them subsidize basic living expenses of their Wal-Mart employees. They, like all corporate welfare queens, want it both ways.

    But it doesn’t end there, they give new hires first priority if they are sent from state unemployment offices to capture the state’s tax breaks. Priority for work experience, education and personal strengths are secondary, hence the horrid customer service at Wal-Mart. Once these formerly unemployed workers find a job that pays a living wage, they jump off the six month khaki pants carousel and Wal-Mart captures another tax break for hiring yet another worker sent by the unemployment office. The shorter the tenure of the minimum wage worker, the more tax breaks Wal-Mart can collect by hiring as many of these as possible over the course of year. They game the system not just with food stamps but with unemployment benefits.

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