I’ve been beating the minimum wage drum (for free, because that’s how I roll) before Hillary started hiding emails and lying about it. Before Caitlyn Jenner dropped himself in a world of delusion. Before #BlackLivesMatter was more important than #AllLivesMatter. Before…you get the idea.
Well the great and powerful Walmart is facing some rollbacks and falling stock prices, and not even their trademark yellow, gender-fluid smiley face can save them. Walmart says it’s has three key problems:
- Theft
- Stronger dollar
- Minimum wage hike.
To the first point, people steal and that’s no bueno. To counter some of this thieving, Walmart has brought back their cheery door greeters who are actually secret ninjas. So if you’re greeted with “Welcome to Walmart” by a 77 year old woman with a walker, be warned. She’s there to take your ass down if you try to steal as much as a banana. Those tennis balls on her walker are, in fact, filled with C-4. Happy shopping, punks.
Secondly, the stronger dollar? For realzies? Whatevs.
But number three, that’s why we’re all here. In some parts of the country, the minimum wage has skyrocketed to $15/hour. Why? Because someone somewhere doesn’t give two craps about basic economics and just set an arbitrary number and called it “fairness.” Probably a career politician. The minimum wage hike is so fair and wonderful and all things happy that even unions want to be exempted from it (after advocating for it). Other things from which they want to be exempt: basic economics. Also, humanity.
Here’s the deal with the minimum wage: it’s a random number that doesn’t reflect the value of the work being done. Therefore raising the minimum wage to a higher arbitrary number, determined by someone with as much business sense as that of single-ply toilet paper, causes people to lose their jobs, because their jobs aren’t worth that arbitrary number. Make sense? For example, the fairness gods might determine that a “fair,” livable wage is $50/hour, or let’s say $75,000 a year. But is a burger-flipper or a shelf-stocker worth that much? No, they’re not. So what makes you think they’re worth $15/hour?
Aha! See, you didn’t think. There’s your problem.
Employees are not paid based on fairness, they’re paid based on job worth. McDonalds, for example, and now Walmart, cannot afford to pay a low-skill, ENTRY-LEVEL worker an arbitrary dollar amount. It’s simple math, people. Besides, a minimum wage job was never meant to be a career. Most entry-level workers are young, inexperienced and/or just entering the job force. Raising the minimum wage puts them out of work. True story. Also true story: I once soiled myself in the 8th grade. The results were similar.
And now that Walmart has gone all touchy-feely and progressive about minimum wage, guess who gets the shaft? Young people, including young black men and women. Remember, Walmart is the largest employer for the black community in the country. Are these jobs career-level? No, most jobs at a retail store are not. But they’re a start. Those jobs are the proverbial “foot in the door” of the job market. Walmart is also one of the largest employers overall in most states.
So what do you think is going to happen to all those entry-level employees when the wage hike hits? Ding, ding, ding! They’ll lose those jobs. Will we be hearing from Al Sharpton or the Reverend Jackson about how the minimum wage forces young black Americans out of work? Don’t hold your breath. What will happen? Likely more of the same: whining politicians who bemoan the giant retailer and its ridiculous profit-needs (those greedy bastards) while ignoring the destruction of their own leftist policies.
Meanwhile, the #BlackLivesMatter crowds will continue to destroy their own communities and won’t blink an eye at losing jobs. Hey, that frees up a lot of time to protest, doesn’t it?
Priorities.
I was in Walmart one evening looking for a particular skin care item, and the woman who works in the beauty section and I struck up a conversation. Our Walmart had recently gone to a 24/7 cycle, and she was telling me how bad the shoplifting had gotten since going to an “open all night” store. She said she spent more time picking up and disposing of empty boxes and packaging from items being stolen than she did stocking product. I’ve seen her several times since then and have asked about the shoplifting, and she said it’s just gotten worse. With that kind of product loss AND a $15/hr minimum wage, I wouldn’t be surprised if there are layoffs in Walmart’s future. Walmart is a “for-profit” business, and that’s not evil. They are not obligated to go out of business to make the lib/progs happy.
It amazes me that they would even consider doing it. They know that they are going to fire people in mass numbers. I will not see where this is going to be in the best interest to the poor and unskilled. LIBS? PROGRESSIVES need to wake up. It has gotten stupid.
Let’s not forget, the same people screaming for raising the minimum wage are also the ones that want the illegal aliens to be allowed to work for low wages. What do they think has been suppressing wages in the first place.
The local Walmart where I live raised there minimum wage to $9.00 or $9.50 an hour depending on what department you’re in. It’s had a huge impact already. Yes, they raised wages and to compensate for it, they cut all the part-time employees’ hours to 15-20 a week. Walmart claimed they were raising wages to help their employees have a better standard of living and reduce the number of workers who received public assistance such as food stamps. Now, more than ever, more of the WM employees are on public assistance due to loss of hours. Pretty shady deal Walmart! I think Sam Walton would be rolling over in his grave if he could see all of this and how poor customer service is in their stores.
In my state, these whiney, non skilled workers got their $15 an hour, and now they are demanding their hours cut so they don’t loose their section 8 housing and the amount of their food stamps.
What a crock of sheeite this article is! Never in the history of minimum wage hikes has it caused any downward pressure. Leave it to the business hawks to try an convince you that you should work for starvation wages. Nobody who works a 40 hour week should have to live in poverty. Wal-Mart family owns more wealth that 40$ of Americans. Is this fair? F-NO! Fight for your right to live above a minimum wage!
I see by your post that you are either unfamiliar with basic economics, basic business theory past or present, and current business news. Either that, or you are a typical Liberal loon ignoring reality and are simply a progressive Socialist hack spouting the party lie.
I suspect the latter.
You obviously have never owned a business. Just raising the minimum wage is the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. Corresponding with the raise in wages, are increased payroll taxes, higher workers compensation insurance premiums, etc. If the business owner cannot absorb all of these increases, which most cannot, then they must figure a way to increase sales of their services or product. This, in turn, gets passed on to the consumers. This is not only unreasonable, but unfair and unrealistic in operating a business. The bottom line is that this is pushed by the liberal agenda whose policies support spending other people’s money, but never their own. WalMart isn’t to blame as they are a for-profit business. They, or any other business, should not be forced into poverty to keep the progressives happy. And, again, most of these jobs where employees are paid minimum wage are not career jobs, but entry level jobs. Most of them are not even full time.
What is unfair is carrying lowlifes like you at less than you can produce back because you don’t really want to work, you want to take. Eventually what happened to Greece will happen here, and then non-starter lazy’s like you will just starve. Fine.
I remember the minimum wage hike in the 90’s. $4.25 hr to 5.25. It immediately cost me hours. I was getting all the overtime I wanted and was making good money. Then the policy changed to only overtime that is pre-approved. I got none. My checks went from eight hundred a paycheck down to less than five hundred. This was when rent on a one bedroom house was 350 a month. I had poor credit due to my young age and my car payment was 400 a month. I had far less money monthly than I needed due to that one law. What is worse is the prices for things went up as well about two months later. This pattern has been the same with every wage hike since. That and those who earned raises do get an equal raise they only get up to minimum wage or none at all if they are above it already. This puts them back at square one. Basic math an basic economics prove this to be true. Education is what will help the poor the lazy are just SOL.
Speedy1, Your post demonstrates a 100%, total and complete lack of understanding of economics. And what is more frightening, is that if you actually read the article, it would appear you also completely lack the skill of reading comprehension.
If you are SO adamant about paying people a “fair” wage, please, start your own business, and put YOUR money where your mouth is, and pay all your employees a “fair” wage, say $50,000/year. Then, after about a month, when you are out of business, post back here about how it worked out for you.
And by the way, adults don’t use the word “fair” to whine about stuff. Life isn’t “fair.” It isn’t “fair” that 5% of the population pay over 70% of the taxes, and that 50% of the working population pay NOTHING!
Arguing with a liberal, is like playing chess with a seagull…It poops all over the boards and struts around like, it already won. (Aaron Osgood)
Somebody has to explain to me why all these economists say raising the wage is good for the economy must be the new math….
Those who support it have placed their allegiance to forwarding the progressive Socialist agenda and couldn’t care less about Economics.
No one “pressured Walmart” to raise wages. The Walton brats are a bunch of Liberal Democrats who have been supporting every Liberal cause and Democrat that has come along. It’s a smokescreen.
It is simple…time is the factor not money. If milk cost $5 and you make $10/hour…then it will take you 30 minutes to earn that milk…if min wage goes up to $15/hour then milk will almost instantly rise to $7.50…meaning that you will still have to work 30 minutes to earn that milk
Why is it that minimum wage ISN’T even close to livable? The regulations and taxes that have been passed on everything from transportation to food to housing have made it to where you can’t even come close to living on it. So not only look at it being an entry level job, but look at how much prices of EVERYTHING go up when these people elect people who tax and regulate everything in our lives.
I work for Walmart 1. They won’t have layoffs, people quit all the time they just wont rehire people to fill the Void. 2. If you have seen the commercals for increasing the pay, just know that at our store they cut the raises down so people will not get as big of a raise. That is how they will solve the Problem.
if employers would raise the bar on the customer service skills of employees they’d get better employees who would deserve higher wages (not $15 and hour) but so many businesses in my area struggle to find people who want to work, so what is hired is usually a “warm body” to fill the spot, customer satisfaction suffers and customers are lost..
there is no one answer, throwing money at problems never solves anything. **disclaimer** this is my opinion.
Employee pay is not based on job worth. It is based on the laws of supply and demand which work for the labor market as much as anything else. Surplus unskilled labor (unemployment) and falling demand (outsourcing) are pushing wages down. This becomes a problem when wages become so low that people cannot afford to live off what they make. Eg. look at the conditions of workers during the gilded age. We will eventually get to a point where people can barely feed themselves off what they make. When people cannot live off what they make, the government has to step in and supplement with food stamps, welfare etc. Basically, companies like walmart have been using the federal government to supplement it’s payroll for years at the taxpayers expense.
A higher minimum wage can be damaging for small businesses that are already marginally profitable. I don’t know that $15/hr is the right answer but Wal-mart gets zero sympathy from me. I know too many entry level people who were handed pamphlets on how to apply for food stamps and government housing upon being hired and too many management level people who watched corporate lay off all the older managers because it is cheaper to replace them with fresh graduates who will take more crap for less money.
Walmart has given raises. They where .27 for over 25 years of service. Very experienced people that do the job of 5 they cut over time cut back hours can’t cover their stores because they hired people that don’t produce (lazybones) while the good workers are punished with no raise they want those gone so the can hire 2 people that don’t speak English and they are just a body I’ve seem it. The biggest complaint with customers are no one speaks English. Don’t get me wrong there are people that done speak but work very hard and desire the job. Skills are the key there was a time you where paid on skills. Now be a cashier at Walmart and get 10-12 dollars an our. But the key is they work only 4-5 hours a shift.and no insurance.
Just wait until Walmart says:
“All our customers have smart phones. Shop online and come to to the warehouse/store to pick up your order. Shoplifting solved. 250 jobs per store solved.