The Ultimate Welfare Queen: Wal-Mart

[BurtWorm]

Why is Wal-Mart the "success" it is? Because it relies on government to pick up the slack its bottom-of-the-barrel labor costs won't cover.


Volume 51, Number 20 · December 16, 2004


Review
Inside the Leviathan

By Simon Head

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17647

One of the most telling of all the criticisms of Wal-Mart is to be found in a February 2004 report by the Democratic Staff of the House Education and Workforce Committee. In analyzing Wal-Mart's success in holding employee compensation at low levels, the report assesses the costs to US taxpayers of employees who are so badly paid that they qualify for government assistance even under the less than generous rules of the federal welfare system. For a two-hundred-employee Wal-Mart store, the government is spending $108,000 a year for children's health care; $125,000 a year in tax credits and deductions for low-income families; and $42,000 a year in housing assistance. The report estimates that a two-hundred-employee Wal-Mart store costs federal taxpayers $420,000 a year, or about $2,103 per Wal-Mart employee. That translates into a total annual welfare bill of $2.5 billion for Wal-Mart's 1.2 million US employees.

Wal-Mart is also a burden on state governments. According to a study by the Institute for Labor and Employment at the University of California, Berkeley, in 2003 California taxpayers subsidized $20.5 million worth of medical care for Wal-Mart employees. In Georgia ten thousand children of Wal-Mart employees were enrolled in the state's program for needy children in 2003, with one in four Wal-Mart employees having a child in the program.<9>

[AllegroRondo]

1. They actually give new employees classes

in how to apply for food stamps and other government aid

[BurtWorm]

4. Are you serious?

That fact should be better known. :wow:

[wicket]

12. It's true

And you're right, the info does need to get out there, especially for communities considering building that monstrosity. They should know upfront how much of drain it will be on their resources.

[BurtWorm]

10. kick

[BurtWorm]

13. I'm going to keep kicking this. REASONS TO DESTROY WAL-MART

I think Wal-Mart should be targeted for destruction for the following reasons:

1. It's leading a race to the bottom among corporations who are looking for reasons to treat labor like shit.

2. Wal-Marts murder local businesses and economies.

3. Wal-Mart destroys union activity among their workers with a rapid response team that jets around the country indoctrinating workers against labor unions in enforced meetings.

4. Wal-Mart union has a culture against advancing the women who work for them.

5. Wal-Mart profits only because tax payers pick up the slack in providing support for Wal-Mart workers in the form of food-stamps and other welfare measures. Wal-Mart is the Queen of Corporate Welfare Queens.

[Dzimbowicz]

15. Thank you for that interesting info...

I've never patronized Walmart because of reason #2. Now I have more reasons to continue to avoid them.

[BurtWorm]

17. I've never paid them much interest. They're not in Manhattan, where I live

But this article makes me think they have to be actively resisted. We should set a goal for the last Wal-Mart to close, and it should be in a matter of years, not decades.

[gorbal]

38. Here is a good website about it

Here is a great website about Sprawl and how to combat it-

http://www.sprawl-busters.com/

[buckettgirl]

14. No they don't

I should know, I worked at walmart!
They give training on customer service and job specifics.

good god people..

[BurtWorm]

19. What good god are you talking about?

Do you want to defend Wal-Mart? I'm open.

[buckettgirl]

21. I'm not defending walmart

I am talking about the truth. The post about classes to fill out forms for food stamps and such is not true.
I know that for a fact because I worked at walmart. It makes me sick the extremes and spins that ANYONE is willing to put on the truth.

[BurtWorm]

23. I agree, if it isn't true. It might not be true where you worked.

It might be true elsewhere, though.

[elehhhhna]

2. Funny. I thougth Halliburton was the new Welfare Queen...

[pnorman]

3. Thanks for finding that.

I just posted that excerpt, using your sublect header, on my union BBS.

pnorman

[AmandaRuth]

5. i am embarrassed to say that I was in a walmart the other day

and i did buy some earplugs for $1.49, as Walmart is the only place that carries these particular earplugs, and I can't sleep without them. Seriously, hubby snores loud. But anyway, I was walking around, and I cannot believe the prices there.

children's dvd's for $1.00 (religious themed), personal headphones for dvd players $5.00, and on and on. Everyday items like toilet paper and shampoo consistently priced lower than anywhere else. I know that most of this stuff is cheap crap and will be in a landfill in less than a year, but with wages and family incomes as low as they are these days, I don't see how the average person (not politically aware) could resist. It makes me sad, because the Walmart policies reverberate thru the manufacturing chain, not to mention the effect on small business, and everybody gets dragged down.


I quickly bought my earplugs and got the heck out of there, feeling very guilty.

[BurtWorm]

6. All that stuff is so cheap because cutting labor costs is job 1 at W-M.

But keeping Wal-Mart's labor costs so low is extremely expensive to the American taxpayer.


Read the article. It's painful.

[annabanana]

7. "WalMart? You know YOU are paying their employees salaries"

Should be said to everyone who ever tells you they've just come back from there.!

[Killarney]

8. interesting. thanks for posting.

[MatrixEscape]

9. Big corps ...

don't like this info circulating. Let's piss them off and circulate it as our way of showing support and solidarity for the workers.

Wow, look at Wal-Mart, the bling of welfare queens. That ho can go!

[BurtWorm]

11. Kick

:kick:

[SheepyMcSheepster]

16. kick!

walmart has got to go (or at least cut it down a notch)

[buckettgirl]

18. Talk about taking statistics out of context...

I read that article, and those statistics were used to show that walmart employees need union representation for fair wages.

You want to boycott walmart, you want to bitch about walmart for reasons like this...
where else would you have these employees go work at? Many of them are unskilled and walmart is the only job they can get to support their family. Would you rather that they quit work and live off the system completely? Would you rather that the children of these employees starve because mom or dad can't work anywhere else?

I worked at the super walmart in my hometown for 3 months of my life because I needed a job and they were the ONLY place that was hiring. They paid above minimum wage, and were the next best place to work as far as wages are concerned.
In fact, had my life not changed drastically, I might have been doomed to be a walmart deli girl for a very long time.

I am not saying that walmart is good...I am not saying that boycotting it is necessarily wrong - do what you feel the need to do. But I am saying that you need to question evidence you find more closely. I agree with this article: walmart employees need union representation. What do you want these people to do? I am entirely sure that for the vast majority of them, finding another employer is not feasible.

[BurtWorm]

20. The point is that Wal-Mart is getting rich because they pay their workers

shit. And they're making a corporate environment in which workers will be paid shit. Is it true or not that Wal-Mart orders workers to log out to use the rest room? True or not that they squeeze as much productivity out of workers and pay for as little time as possible? True or not that they don't promote women with equal regularity as they promote men? Or pay women as well as men?

[mac56]

22. True or not that they require employees

to sign up for "dead peasant insurance"? A policy that Wal-Mart pays for and collects on should the individual pass away while still a Wal-Mart employee? The family members don't see a dime.

[buckettgirl]

25. Not true

In fact, the day I started, I filled out a life insurance form and made my mother-in-law the beneficiary. If I remember correctly, it was $20,000 policy. They paid for it...

[mac56]

27. They've done it in many places.

From the Valley Advocate in Massachusetts:

Dead or Alive, Wal-Mart Gets Value From Its Workers

Wal-Mart's policy of insuring employees is just one of organized labor's gripes about the corporation.

Even Scrooge couldn't have come up with this one: buying life insurance on his employees with himself as beneficiary, while the families of deceased workers get nothing.

In New Hampshire, Vicki Rice discovered that the company had an insurance policy worth more than $300,000 on her husband, the assistant manager of a Wal-Mart store in Tilton, who died of a heart attack in 1999 after carrying a television set to a customer's car. Now Rice is suing Wal-Mart in federal court.

And in Texas, where it's illegal for corporations to take out life insurance on middle- and low-level employees -- known unflatteringly as "janitor insurance" or "dead peasant insurance" -- other relatives of deceased Wal-Mart employees are going to court to keep the company from reaping big profits from the deaths.

[buckettgirl]

24. nasty rumors

walmart employees DO NOT clock out to use the restroom. I never felt overworked. I worked in the deli at the super walmart. The only time we were overworked is when someone called in sick (like any other normal job) and it was a busy day. I don't know anything about unequal promotion of men and women (other than that court case anyway). I saw my dept. manager play favorites among all genders (that just shows his lack of character, not walmarts policy); but he even went to extremes to make sure that I didn't lose my job and to get help that I needed(I was having personal issues and ended up quiting anyway). As far as wages go, the postion and shift I worked was predetermined by the department, any person/gender would make the same wage (at that time it was $6.75/hr). I even got paid shift differential because I worked evenings. I am fairly certain it was that way throughout the store.
To compare, the next best paying job in this town (for unskilled workers) was working at Sykes (computer/software manufacturers outsource to sykes to provide tech support). Sykes started at $7.00/hr (a crappy, small 1 or 2 bedroom apartment here runs about $400 -$500/month - very expensive) They sucked to work for, even moreso than walmart. They are what you all are talking about as far as a bad employer goes... Personally, Sykes made walmart look like heaven, even though both were no good.
All I can say is this is my experience with walmart, and since they seem to be pretty much standardized, I don't know why it would be much different anywhere else.

[mac56]

26. I'm glad you had a good experience there, buckettgirl.

But from everything I've been reading, that's the exception rather than the rule. Especially if a woman stays with the company for any length of time expecting to be promoted like a man would.

[buckettgirl]

30. that makes a difference too

I didn't go to walmart expecting to be promoted... I went because I need to keep a roof over my head and anything that paid was good enough for me...

[mac56]

32. Once again, glad you got what you needed.

But I bet a lot of women start working there fully expecting they'll be able to work their way up the ladder.

[buckettgirl]

36. Most of the people

that I saw get promoted or were trying for it, or were in higher up positions were still in college and usually business majors...
I really am not sure that it is possible to work your way up the ladder at any walmart...:shrug:

[mac56]

37. How sad.

People going to work knowing that they'll probably stay stuck right where they are. Personally, I'd take on a who-gives-a-shit attitude.

[BurtWorm]

35. They are desperate-worker friendly.

They're getting rich off desperate workers.

[BurtWorm]

28. Well, maybe other people with Wal-Mart experience can round out the

picture. I only know what I've read in this article and Barbara Ehrenreich's piece. Not to mention the labor court cases that repeatedly come up. I still want to know why I shopuldn't believe that Wal-Mart's wealth comes from underpaying workers. Nothing you've said, anecdotal as it is, contradicts that, given that the article I cite in the first post is to a review of a conference and other sources that looked at Wal-Mart as a whole.

[gorbal]

29. :)

I get what you say about not being overworked when I go to Wal-mart, LOL! They pay people so little they can't really expect much from them. Walmart WAS one of the largest contributers to the Republican party, and they are known for moving into small towns, cutting their prices, then jacking them up again when the competition is out of town.

I remeember going to by CD's at the Walmart in Maine. There aren't many other places to buy CD's in some areas so the prices are through the roof. Usually 14-22 dollars. ICK!

[mac56]

31. Also, Wal-Mart orders "censored" versions of many CDs.

And they stopped carrying Sheryl Crow when she recorded a song critical of them.

[buckettgirl]

33. I hate that

I don't buy cd's at walmart, and I rarely buy dvd's there either.

One thing I found odd, lately at super walmart, they have stopped carrying lingerie... ya know, those cute little satiny, lacey nighties and wannabe teddies... they are nowhere to be found. The rack they used to be on was replaced with baggy, long sleeved flannel pajamas.
So, we're not supposed to be naughty - no bad words in music lyrics and no feeling sexy... lol
some of the stuff they do I don't know what to think about

[MadHound]

39. Gee friend, you know that if there wasn't a WalMart in your town

You could have gotten a higher paying job and had a much easier time about it. It is a fact that for every job WalMart brings to a town, it takes away 1.5 jobs from the rest of the community. And the jobs that it does bring are consistently paid less than other retail jobs in that town. Source: How WalMart is Destroying America(Bill Quinn)<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/index%3Dstripbooks%26field-keywords%3Dhow%20walmart%20is%20destroying%20america%26results-process%3Ddefault%26dispatch%3Dsearch/ref%3Dpd%5Fsl%5Fov%5Ftops-1%5Fstripbooks%5F6490321%5F1/002-0378615-2397627>

And yes, WalMart is a welfare queen, in more ways than one. Not only do they force their employees on the public dole with their low low wages, but they also force taxpayers to pick up the tab for their various vanity projects. I live in the Columbia Mo area, where two of the Walton spawn live, and here are a few examples: Rather than have fifty feet of their MASSIVE estate lopped off for a much needed road widening project, the Walton spawn forced the state to build(and Missouri taxpayers to pay for) an entirely new four lane road to take the old one's place. This road is situated on the edge of an enviromentally sensitive nature area.

These Walton spawn bullied the Missouri legislature into building a new basketball arena as a monument to their vanity. They donated 25 million towards the project, but we, the taxpayers, get to pick up the rest of the 75 million dollar bill. Yet the Walton spawn retained the naming rights for the new arena, and named it after their daughter Paige. Thankfully, Paige got caught in a little cheating scandal at USC that was broadcast nationwide on 20/20 a couple of weeks ago. This forced the UMC board of curators to take back the naming rights, and rename it Mizzou Arena. This new arena was completely unneeded, and it only added 1500 new seats, mostly in luxury boxes.

These are but two examples of how the Walton clan force the taxpayer to subsidize their earnings. There are many more examples here in this state, along with Arkansas and elsewhere. Everybody likes to tout Sam Walton's business model, but the dirty little secret is that the taxpayers are the ones who really help WalMart's bottom line.

[BurtWorm]

40. And he had the audacity to call himself a capitalist!! The socialist

bastid! (A socialist bastid is one who enjoys the benefits of socialism while calling anyone else who believes in socialism a commie.)

[gorbal]

34. Check

Check this out-

http://www.nacsonline.com/NR/exeres/000053dcxluzhfnrsorguqpx/NewsPosting.asp?NRMODE=Published&NRORIGINALURL=%2fNACS%2fNews%2fDaily_News_Archives%2fJanuary2004%2fnd0120044%2ehtm&NRNODEGUID=%7b6B136601-CE57-4F73-A1C4-7BC98E6C5570%7d&NRQUERYTERMINATOR=1&cookie%5Ftest=1

I guess it ISn't the same everywhere. Hmmmmm.

[Q]

41. This gives a whole new meaning to the phrase: WORKING POOR

This is what's planned for Bush's* America. Survival of the fittest and the rich get richer on the backs of the people and 'their' government.

This demostrates nicely what's wrong with 'trickle-down' economics.