strib: Wal-Mart's reach/Who pays for fringe benefits?

[question everything]

startribune.com

Editorial: Wal-Mart's reach/Who pays for fringe benefits?
Published June 19, 2005

In the waning days of the 2005 Legislature, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has declared war on Sen. Becky Lourey over a bill that would require public disclosure of big companies whose employees rely on state subsidized health insurance. We hope legislators find time in the special session to pass Lourey's bill, for Wal-Mart has taken the wrong position based on faulty premises.

Around the Capitol, Lourey's bill has been dubbed the "anti-Wal-Mart bill." But that's a misnomer. The DFLer from Kerrick, Minn., would require the state to compile a list of all large companies along with the number of their employees who use MinnesotaCare, the subsidized health plan for the working poor. When Massachusetts passed a similar law, Wal-Mart wound up on the list, but so did Dunkin' Donuts, McDonald's, several hospitals and the city of Boston.

No one wants to stigmatize companies that create jobs for low-skill, low-wage workers. But Lourey has a different, and perfectly legitimate, goal in mind. Gov. Tim Pawlenty has proposed severe cuts to MinnesotaCare this year, and lawmakers ought to know how those cuts would affect the economy and Minnesota's biggest employers. More specifically, Lourey wants to sit down with business lobbyists who press for lower taxes while simultaneously using tax-funded services.

But there's a larger public interest as well. The United States has the least regulated labor market in the industrialized world. (Germany and Japan, by contrast, have achieved universal health care by essentially mandating that employers and employees pay for coverage.) The American theory is that the economy works best when private markets set wages, benefits and working conditions -- and then the public sector plugs the gaps where necessary. But that public supplement has become a huge burden on taxpayers; health-care is now the No. 2 item in Minnesota's state budget. When some employers externalize one of the costs of doing business -- and their competitors do not -- voters and taxpayers have a right to know how their money is being spent. Lourey is herself a small business owner who provides health insurance for her employees, and she calls her plan the "we're all in this together bill."

(snip)

http://www.startribune.com/stories/1519/5463240.html

[whistle]

1. How do "big companies" arrange for their employees to...

...rely on state subsidized health insurance, in other words Medicare?

[ovidsen]

3. Easily

Companies (and WalMart isn't alone) simply refuse to offer employment compensation packages that includes basic health care.

Illinois is another state where lawmakers want to list companies which provide little or no health care benefits to workers. Not surprisingly, WalMart opposes this.

It's an evil situation where firms can have their cake and eat it too. They pay workers subhuman wages, offering health care packages which cost extra, which workers can't afford because they barely earn enough for basics like food and shelter.

State Medicaid recipients who do have jobs qualify for Medicaid only because their incomes fall below a set poverty level, at which the state assumes they can't afford private coverage. If these workers were paid more, they wouldn't qualify. So the company "saves" on two fronts. They pay workers subhuman wages, and let taxpayers pick up the costs of health care. And then they laugh all the way to the bank.

Evil.

[Shallah Kali]

4. there have been reports they employees to apply for gov. aid

This is what lead to film maker Robert Greenwald to make his documentary on wal-mart
Wal-Mart....the movie
http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/2005/06/003886.html

Wal-Mart the Documentary
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theblog/archive/robert-greenwald/the-walmart-documentary_1940.html

They also get paid huge subsidies to build their stores in an area promising good paying jobs and then *still* underpays workers and give little benefits:

Reports Blast 'Double-Dipping' by Wal-Mart
http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/36/10453

[nannah]

2. this varies from state to state depending on state's welfare and medical

programs. I work as a social worker in WA state. There are several ways people earning low wages get state assistance. Depending on family size, many parents earning low wages continue to qualify for TANF (Temporary Aid to Needy Families) which is the federal welfare program. Food stamps, TANF, and medical coupons subsidize the wages paid by Walmart and other employers who hire people to work part time and avoid having to pay benefits. I have read that some Walmart stores actually have computer terminals that link to state websites.

It is common for people receiving public assistance to be working. And they often work under the most frustrating and difficult situations. Walmart is notorious for the "surprise" schedule... phone rings, "surprise" Come to work now! watch the single mother of two scramble to organize child care and transportation so she can rush to work. a few days later...."surprise" dad just got to work, after busing the baby to child care and arranging for child care van to bring school age child to child care, and is told he isn't needed today.
this happens again and again.

By the way, not only are food stamps, TANF, and medical care subsidized for people who work for low wages. Child care, which costs most states as much or more than TANF, is also subsidized by taxpayers for peole who earn too little to pay on their own.

Those deals you get at businesses that short change their workers bite you back when you pay your taxes. But much of this is hidden from plain few, so people are mostly unaware.

Any subsidizing of medical care is the tip of the ice berg; the sad truth is that workers who earn low wages have very limited options for health care. when they get care, they are billed the highest possible charge while they have the least resources to pay. often they don't get medical care unless it is a crisis. Then hospitals and doctors find themselves unable to recoup the cost of the emergency care. The health care problem in the US is unecessarily spiraling out of control. Single payer health care is a rational solution to this issue. and moving health care from its connection to employment would reduce the attraction of manipulating worker's hours to avoid paying benefits.

edit: spelling