Business Tries to Stop San Diego's Minimum Wage Hike

Raise it to $100/hr. After all, where's the harm?

 

Denny is the one who used Hooters as an example.

I just like boobs.

 

Rep'd for your rep.

 

Walmart’s low-wage workers cost U.S. taxpayers an estimated $6.2 billion in public assistance including food stamps, Medicaid and subsidized housing, according to a report published to coincide with Tax Day, April 15.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoc...t-taxpayers-6-2-billion-in-public-assistance/

 

Walmart is subsidizing those workers' benefits. Instead of being unemployed and needing 100% of their living off govt. programs, only some fraction need a fraction of their living from govt.

 

Walmart

https://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=WMT

 

Wow, that's awfully generous of Walmart to do that. They are just a great big charity, giving money to poor people so they won't be on welfare.

barfo

 

If not Walmart, where would they be? How about they quit Walmart and go to your fantasyland job.

 

Walmart has 10,500 stores. Their profit is $15B. That works out to less than $1.5M per store. The stores have about 300 employees each. The average worker makes $25K.

Take all the $1.4M profit and divide among the 300 workers and they make $29K instead of $25K. Better, but still a shitty job.

Bag on them all you want, but they're a very low margin business at 3.3%.

Their revenue is $450B. That's larger than all but about 25 nations. I pick a nation at random, Argentina, that has about a $450B GDP. The average Walmart employee makes over $2K per month. The average Argentinian worker makes $1100.

If not Walmart, then where?

 

By their own design.

That's a pretty silly comparison, since Walmart workers (mostly?) don't live in Argentina.

The ma and pa stores that Walmart replaced? It's not exactly consistent to decry the demise of small businesses and yet, in the same thread, promote Walmart as the exemplar of corporate goodwill.

barfo

 

Walmart doesn't displace all small businesses. Not even close to that.

But surely if Walmart doesn't follow YOUR design, everyone who works there should be and there'd be no Walmart. But there's that fantasyland thing again, and then there's the reality that Walmart is HUUUUUGE.

Walmart sells stuff that Obamanomics inflictees can afford. There's obviously a need for it because so many people buy stuff there.

Walmart still does better for its employees than a whole nation with the same national income.

So do you think it matters if you add a 0 to the end of a person's paycheck if you also add a 0 to the end of what they have to spend on food and gasoline and rent?

 

Obviously. Your marine memorabilia store, for instance.

I can't even parse that. No idea what you are trying to say.

There's demand for it, most certainly. Need is a whole 'nother matter.

GDP is not the same thing as revenue, and revenue is not the same thing as income.

Depends. Someone who spends all their pay on food and gasoline and rent, it won't make any difference. Someone who makes significantly more than that should be very very happy to have both multiplied by 10.

barfo

 

barfo,

You say Walmart is a low margin business by their own design. Well, if someone can design something better, where is it? Why do employees even work for Walmart when your fantasyland better design must be out there?

While the main street here has many empty stores, it also has many stores that aren't. They're all going to suffer or raise prices. If they raise prices, the people who get the higher minimum wage will be paying more for everything so they lose the benefit of the higher wage. Everyone else, too.

GDP is national income. You like links.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earned_income_tax_credit

The United States federal earned income tax credit or earned income credit (EITC or EIC) is a refundable tax credit for low to moderate income working individuals and couples—particularly those with children. The amount of EITC benefit depends on a recipient’s income and number of children. For a person or couple to claim one or more persons as their qualifying child(ren), the relationship, age, and shared residency requirements must be met, as well as some other requirements. In the 2013 tax year, working families with children that have annual incomes below $37,870 to $51,567 (depending on the number of dependent children) may be eligible for the federal EITC. Workers without children that have incomes below about $14,340 ($19,680 for a married couple) can receive a very small EITC benefit. U.S. tax forms 1040EZ, 1040A, or 1040 can be used to claim EITC without qualifying children. To claim the credit with qualifying children, 1040A or 1040 must be used along with Schedule EITC attached.[1]

EIC phases in slowly, has a medium-length plateau, and then phases out more slowly than it phased in. And since the credit phases out at 21% (more than one qualifying child) or 16% (one qualifying child), it is always preferable to have one more dollar of actual salary or wages (although technically, since the EIC table moves by fifty dollar increments, it's always preferable to have an extra fifty-dollar increment of salary or wages).

For tax year 2013, the maximum EITC benefit for a single person or couple filing without qualifying children is $487. The maximum EITC with one qualifying child is $3,250, with two children it is $5,372, and with three or more qualifying children it is $6,044.[2][3][4] These amounts are indexed annually for inflation.

$487 is $.23/hour for 2080 hours (full time). If the person works less than 40 hours a week, it boosts his/her pay by even more.

$3250 is $1.56/hour full time.

$5372 is $2.58/hour.

$6044 is $2.91/hour.

The only point in raising minimum wage is the idiotic concept of "economic justice."

The EITC actually goes to the people who need the help, not to the wives of rich guys who work for the fun of it at a minimum wage job.

 

Better in what sense? Walmart is obviously a very successful business ($15B in profit). Very large scale, low prices, they make a lot of money on volume, they intentionally keep their margins low so that competitors cannot match their pricing. That's what I meant by their own design.

That's a bit simplistic. Not every business relies primarily on minimum wage workers, so not every business would need to raise prices if the minimum wage goes up.

That's also a bit simplistic.

barfo