

If Wal-Mart paid a living wage, how much would their prices increase? - jcalvinowens
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vAcaeLmybCY

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mchusma
I do get tired of terms like "living wage". Clearly the workers are not "dead"
or "unliving". It is like the "pro-life" or "pro-choice" terms, deliberately
politicizing.

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aylons
If the government must give these people food stamps so they can live, then
Walmart is not paying a living wage. The living wage would be "Walmart wages"
\+ food stamps.

Government is subsidizing Walmart by allowing them to pay less than a living
wage and complementing the money with US tax payers dollars.

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bradleyjg
Food stamps are a fairly broad program -- one fifth of US households receive
them. Certainly not all such households would starve to death without them,
it's a politically palatable cash substitute.

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protomyth
Its so deeply worked into the farm bill every time and farm rules and
subsidies, its basically a political nightmare to break out and change.

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nawitus
It's interesting how so many Americans are against basic income, when there's
a form of basic income already: receiving food stamps while working in a full-
time job. I don't see any problem with receiving benefits / basic income when
working for a smaller wage, if the amount of basic income is large enough.
Therefore I wouldn't try to "force" Walmart to increase wages, rather I'd vote
for politicians who support basic income.

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pa5tabear
I don't think people know enough to be against it.

I'm a university student and within the last year I've talked to 20+ people
about it (mostly students), and mostly people don't know what it is.

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nawitus
That's a good point, it's more known here in Europe. Anyway, I'd estimate that
most people are against it after hearing about it.

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asavi
Walmart is a profit maximizing company. Spending 4 billion dollars to save the
government 300 million in food stamps is not ever going to happen.

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baby
I think the point of the video was to educate customers so they would know how
the company where they're shopping works. Walmart has no interest in doing
that of course.

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supernova87a
What I do not believe the living wage campaigners do a good job of justifying
(and why I generally do not agree with the movement), is how much a wage is
necessary from a policy standpoint.

At the moment, it comes off as completely subjective, and based on a very
rough consensus of what a group believes is enough to live on.

But, they will say, providing this wage only adds pennies to the cost of some
item or service you purchase. Well then, if $12/hr is "good", why not go for
"great", and make the wage $30/hr and have everyone loving their job? No
answer.

Although, I would welcome that level of wage for our Muni/Bart/SF government
workers, who are well beyond, at the level of "ecstatic".

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sentenza
You (Americans) should treasure the existence of the minimum wage. One of the
black spots on our otherwise rather generous social framework here in Germany
is that there exists no minimum wage.

I don't know if the lack of a minimum wage has contributed to the failure of
Walmart here, but they did sell all their stores because they weren't
competitive.

Working at a Walmart probably pays better than many of the jobs at ultra-cheap
supermarkets in Germany (Lidl, Real). I'm not saying that it pays enough, but
at least you all can take some pride in the fact that a minimum wage is in
place.

