Walmart Giving All Employees a Raise to $10/Hour

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Ugh.  Not enough.  The min. wage should be $15 at the least but all we are going to hear is "praise Money-Jesus the invisible hand has saved us all again!"

Hey man, glass is half full here. For your purposes, the left can use this as proof the economy and businesses are willing to expand it and demand 15.

But be happy to see this happen.

The real hurdle is food service workers. I can't see any fast food company willing to make a move like Wal-Mart to shake up the industry. The only ones that would like Chipotle and Starbucks don't really hire bottom of the barrel food employees to begin with; it would have to come from McDonalds or Dunkin Donuts or the like.

If anyone needs the PR boost, it's McDonalds. It just spent millions on that dumb "love" ad campaign and it didn't move the needle at all. The company has big problems with worker quality and public perception; hiking its wages would help on both fronts.

[Oswald Acted Alone, You Kook]

Ugh.  Not enough.  The min. wage should be $15 at the least but all we are going to hear is "praise Money-Jesus the invisible hand has saved us all again!"

I didn't know you hated small businesses.

[OldDominion]

Walmart is not and never will be a highly staffed business.  Their calling card is low prices, not great service, so they aren't going to have staffing levels high enough that you can find an empty register as soon as you arrive at checkout.  There is no reason to doubt their reasons for doing this are exactly what they say they are: to reduce employee turnover.

By the way, $10/hour for a full time job is a livable wage in some parts of the country.  A rather spartan living, but still living.

[DC Al Fine]

Ugh.  Not enough.  The min. wage should be $15 at the least but all we are going to hear is "praise Money-Jesus the invisible hand has saved us all again!"

Hey man, glass is half full here. For your purposes, the left can use this as proof the economy and businesses are willing to expand it and demand 15.

But be happy to see this happen.

The real hurdle is food service workers. I can't see any fast food company willing to make a move like Wal-Mart to shake up the industry. The only ones that would like Chipotle and Starbucks don't really hire bottom of the barrel food employees to begin with; it would have to come from McDonalds or Dunkin Donuts or the like.

Why not though? If Wal-Mart and McD's are hiring from the same pool, anyone who can will go to Wal-Mart for the extra $1-2/hr.

[Grumpier Than Thou]

Ugh.  Not enough.  The min. wage should be $15 at the least but all we are going to hear is "praise Money-Jesus the invisible hand has saved us all again!"

I didn't know you hated small businesses.

I didn't know your grasp of economics was that...well...loose.

[Oswald Acted Alone, You Kook]

Ugh.  Not enough.  The min. wage should be $15 at the least but all we are going to hear is "praise Money-Jesus the invisible hand has saved us all again!"

I didn't know you hated small businesses.

I didn't know your grasp of economics was that...well...loose.

Small businesses can't afford such a high wage without damaging themselves, and everything would also become more expensive as more money means higher prices.

[Grumpier Than Thou]

Ugh.  Not enough.  The min. wage should be $15 at the least but all we are going to hear is "praise Money-Jesus the invisible hand has saved us all again!"

I didn't know you hated small businesses.

I didn't know your grasp of economics was that...well...loose.

Small businesses can't afford such a high wage without damaging themselves, and everything would also become more expensive as more money means higher prices.

The ratio of what small businesses make in profit to what their number of employees is does not drastically differ from the ratio of what corporations make in profit to what their number of employees is. Also notice how the city of Seattle has not descended into the depths of hell since raising their minimum wage to $15/hr. If you want empirical evidence, there's plenty of it to be had, but don't give me talking points about how small businesses can't handle the "burden" of paying people enough for them to live.

[memphis]

Classic Fordism rediscovered 100 years later. In labor markets, you get what you pay for. Crazy to think that Wally World could be a vaguely desirable job à la Starbucks, but it sounds like that's the way we're headed.

[Mr. Smith]

Ugh.  Not enough.  The min. wage should be $15 at the least but all we are going to hear is "praise Money-Jesus the invisible hand has saved us all again!"

I didn't know you hated small businesses.

I didn't know your grasp of economics was that...well...loose.

Small businesses can't afford such a high wage without damaging themselves, and everything would also become more expensive as more money means higher prices.

The ratio of what small businesses make in profit to what their number of employees is does not drastically differ from the ratio of what corporations make in profit to what their number of employees is. Also notice how the city of Seattle has not descended into the depths of hell since raising their minimum wage to $15/hr. If you want empirical evidence, there's plenty of it to be had, but don't give me talking points about how small businesses can't handle the "burden" of paying people enough for them to live.

Besides, it's more incentive to be employed if you get paid more, and more incentive equates to more applications, more employees, and more money generated.

[Oswald Acted Alone, You Kook]

Even ignoring the effect on small businesses, the overall cost of life should be higher. Has that happened since then?

[Mechaman]

Reading some of the posts in this thread that take the defacto "$15 an hour or bust!" line really reminds of several sayings.  The first is "this is why we can't have nice things" and the second one is something a Master of Medicine or whatever said he did not graduate college to get paid the same as a cash register at Target.

I mean, I can understand that in places like Seattle that a $12/hr job at Sonic is probably not enough to make ends meet but down here I am practically middle class and I get paid $15/hr.  If a higher minimum wage always leads to nothing but positive results, then  why don't we just go ahead and raise it to $25/hr nationwide?  Why not $50?  Why not $100?

Now, I realize this is the point where conservatives continue on with their slippery slope about how once we start raising the wage it won't stop going up, but I'm actually trying to prove a much different point here.  The first is that how much a person makes is not based on how high the dollars per hour is at their job, but the overall cost of living in their area.  Now, $8.50/hr is a really good livable wage down here. . . . . . . if you live with your parents.  I can't imagine it is a much different story elsewhere in the South or other low cost of living areas in the country.  Mind that the cost of rent down here is much cheaper than it is in very urban states.

What I'm getting at isn't that OH NO WE CAN'T RAISE IT TO $15/HR THAT IS TOO RADICAL AND SOCIALISTIC but that a raise in minimum wage is not the end all be all of solving the poverty of the working class.  It has to be complemented by other strong anti-poverty measures, namely controls on rent pricing and making college education more universal (or at least a dramatic improvement of the current loan forgiveness practices in this country).  Because as Jimmy McMillan once said "THE RENT IS TOO DAMN HIGH!"

As for Obamanations' comments, I don't imagine that a raise to $10/hr ANYWHERE in the country will just kill anyone.  Assuming a part time employee at a small store works about 25-30 hours a week and they were previously getting paid $8.50/hr before getting bumped up to $10, it's only costing the employer about $45 more a week (basically, a tank of gas for some people), and that is before we assume any effects like increased productivity or a possible increase in profit from customer sales which could make the increase in wages neglible.  Of course, I realize that most places have more than one employee working, so let's just say for the sake of argument that there are five employees.  That is about $225 extra a week, or $900 a month (which in some places is the rent some of these poor souls have to pay).  If a business owner cannot afford that they really need to look at how they are spending their other  money or rethink their purpose for being into business ownership (let's not act like people who can go into business ownership are starving here folks).

However, I would be a liar if I said I did not have reservations about raising the minimum wage across  the country all the way to $15/hr right now.  Maybe some of that is an entitlement mentality (muh degrees mang) but I also do have some legitimate worries about how it would impact small businesses used to working with a min wage that is at least five dollars lower than that.  I do not trust a lot of states to act in the best interest of working people, so I think I speak for a lot of people when I say a federal law is probably best.  However, if it were tied to the cost of living for each state instead of a uniform flat rate, at least until other mitigating factors like rent pricing, student loan debts, utilities, etc. etc. are more equalized among the states I imagine it would go a long way.  I mean I do not like it, but business owners do run a good part of our economies but many of them really do not have an infinite supply of money.  We really do need to become a more socialist like state, but Rome wasn't built in a day guys.  

The minimum wage does need to be increased, but it really needs to be done more smartly and in concert with other cost of living factors.  Especially rent pricing, which is just insane.

Just a few thoughts of mine.

[Grumpier Than Thou]

I actually think there's merit to what Mechaman said. Obviously a hike in the minimum wage is not the end all be all to the poverty problem, but no one is legitimately saying it is. However, there is the cost of living factor to take into effect. The problem with that theory is that, while it is much cheaper to live in the South, 7-8 bucks an hour still isn't enough to cut it. If we go with the "states' rights" approach, a hike in the minimum wage to meet the cost of living would never pass because of the hardheadedness of Southern fiscal conservatives. There really is no way around that without passing a uniform minimum wage hike.

[Famous Mortimer]

Ugh.  Not enough.  The min. wage should be $15 at the least but all we are going to hear is "praise Money-Jesus the invisible hand has saved us all again!"

I didn't know you hated small businesses.

I didn't know your grasp of economics was that...well...loose.

Small businesses can't afford such a high wage without damaging themselves, and everything would also become more expensive as more money means higher prices.

Small business that can't afford to pay their employees a living wage? Damn right, I hate them. They shouldn't be in business.

Similarly, if you can find a big corporation who pays their people fairly, I will be happy to support them.

I support businesses based on their overall business practices, not their size.

Why would anyone think a business being "small" is inherently a good thing? It doesn't tell you anything.

[DC Al Fine]

If a business owner cannot afford that they really need to look at how they are spending their other  money or rethink their purpose for being into business ownership (let's not act like people who can go into business ownership are starving here folks).

That line about small business is the wrong way to go about a very good point for the right. Business is not required to use a fixed amount of domestic labour. They can use foreign labour (outsourcing) or capital (automation).

There's a big disconnect here. Leftists have seen low-skill wages and worker rights erode for a generation, yet totally ignore the causes of those problems when assessing government policy. The grocery store won't go bankrupt if the minimum wage goes to $15, but it will put in more self-serve checkouts.

Now, a $10/minimum wage won't affect much, but if the left wants to raise the poor's income much beyond that, they should do it through minimum income programs, not minimum wages.

[AggregateDemand]

What I'm getting at isn't that OH NO WE CAN'T RAISE IT TO $15/HR THAT IS TOO RADICAL AND SOCIALISTIC but that a raise in minimum wage is not the end all be all of solving the poverty of the working class.

It's not the be all and end all because it is a relatively worthless strategy. It's just an incredibly lazy way to buy votes without spending a penny or developing any worthwhile social programs or tax schemes. It's the laziest lie humanity has ever bought into, besides the myth that pickup trucks make the middle class service sector employee much productive and prosperous.

Furthermore, the cost of labor isn't actually $15 per hour. It's closer to $17 when you consider company-side FICA, FUTA and state unemployment. If you add healthcare for a family of four, wages for full-time employees are closer to $25. Companies shell-out $25 an hour to have an employee who pockets about $12 every paycheck. It's a miracle they care enough to hire anyone for unskilled entry-level positions.

The rent is too damn high because you're paying $25/hr for labor, plus imputed wages, taxes, healthcare, and compliance costs on every good and service provided by someone else.

This is the story of America:
Employer: Random Insurance Company
Box 1: $43,000
Box 12 Code D: $4200 (matched by the company)
Box 12 Code DD: $22,000
Boxes 2,4,6: -$7500

Taxpayer: My pay is too low. I'm voting Democrat, even though they are responsible for box 2,4,6 and for turning Box 1 into Box 12 Code DD. Freedumb!!

[The Mikado]

I think that the main takeaway from Mechaman's comment is the need for regional variation of minimum wages based on the local economy and cost of living. I'm hardly Mr. States' Rights, but I think the idea that it takes quite a bit more money to live in a big coastal city than it does to live in West Virginia or South Dakota is hardly controversial, and I don't see why minimum wage laws shouldn't take cost of living into account.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Here's a fun riddle: The cost of installing self-checkout lanes is only about $30,000; automated food ordering tech can cost even less than that. The tech is currently much less expensive than hiring a human to do it, and it's been that way for quite some time.

So: If self-checkout lanes are such a great money-saver for businesses, why aren't there more of them now?

Hint: It has something to do with the fact that most people simply don't like using self-checkout lanes.

[AggregateDemand]

Here's a fun riddle: The cost of installing self-checkout lanes is only about $30,000; automated food ordering tech can cost even less than that. The tech is currently much less expensive than hiring a human to do it, and it's been that way for quite some time.

So: If self-checkout lanes are such a great money-saver for businesses, why aren't there more of them now?

Hint: It has something to do with the fact that most people simply don't like using self-checkout lanes.

Robots are only cheaper than humans, if you bury humans in FICA taxes and healthcare mandates, and forcing people to pay excise tax to fund roads (robots don't pay it, but they benefit from roads), rather than paying for roads with a broad economic income tax. 

Thanks, Democrats. Torpid little regressives with zero shame and even less brains.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Here's a fun riddle: The cost of installing self-checkout lanes is only about $30,000; automated food ordering tech can cost even less than that. The tech is currently much less expensive than hiring a human to do it, and it's been that way for quite some time.

So: If self-checkout lanes are such a great money-saver for businesses, why aren't there more of them now?

Hint: It has something to do with the fact that most people simply don't like using self-checkout lanes.

Robots are only cheaper than humans, if you bury humans in FICA taxes and healthcare mandates, and forcing people to pay excise tax to fund roads (robots don't pay it, but they benefit from roads), rather than paying for roads with a broad economic income tax.  

Thanks, Democrats. Torpid little regressives with zero shame and even less brains.

Predictably, you are completely incorrect. Robots are cheaper than humans, even if the tax rate is zero; one self-checkout lane replaces more than one cashier because machines don't stop at a 40 hour week. Also: Your insults are not productive nor are they welcome on this forum.

[AggregateDemand]

Predictably, you are completely incorrect. Robots are cheaper than humans, even if the tax rate is zero; one self-checkout lane replaces more than one cashier because machines don't stop at a 40 hour week. Also: Your insults are not productive nor are they welcome on this forum.

You need to run the numbers again. An experienced low-skill worker is more efficient than inexperienced shoppers interfacing with automated checkout machines, especially if you consider the impact on aggregate demand caused by sagging employment rates and participation. Furthermore, automated machines are not a theft deterrent so people are still necessary to deter theft by patrons and monitor the machines to stop malfunctions and keep them stocked with cash and other supplies.

The primary reason we have a burgeoning machine workforce is because Democrats are shameless about taxing labor, thus, imposing imputed taxes on goods and services, while also handicapping human labor with other regulations like minimum wage. If they showed the same disrespect to machines, pocket calculators wouldn't survive the cull.

It's just a matter of regressive thinking and inept government policy.

[Simfan34]

I don't get it. If they have to install robots I assume they will, regardless of whether or not consumers like it.

[memphis]

I'm always amused to see the right insist they prefer Welfare over Working as the cure for poverty.

[AggregateDemand]

I'm always amused to see the right insist they prefer Welfare over Working as the cure for poverty.

Refunding the inhumane taxes you impose on your slave workers is not Welfare. Even if the refund were larger than the tax liability, to relieve the imputed taxes on the goods and services they purchase, it still wouldn't be Welfare.

Welfare is teaching people to rely on the government by punishing them for aspiring to independence. Democrats have never stopped using this form of social control. Setting people free is difficult and unrealistic, and it upsets your economic ambitions.

We get it.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Plenty of supermarkets have made the decision to remove self-checkout lanes after installing them simply because consumers don't actually like using them.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

The above article is about Jewel-Osco removing their machines. Albertsons removed self-checkout lanes in 2011.

See also: Returning to Walmart: Human cashiers
WSJ: Humans trump self-checkout machines at grocery store
Marketplace: Why self-checkout machines don't work

[memphis]

I like the self checkout machines. The lines are usually shorter and I'm spared the awkward small talk. It doesn't work well with a whole cart full of groceries though.