Last week, Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott told reporters that he is lobbying Congress to consider raising the minimum wage so that his customers wouldn't have to struggle so hard between paychecks.
Obviously, if low-wage workers were paid more, Wal-Mart would benefit as well.
The national minimum wage stands at $5.15 per hour.
An employee working full-time at minimum wage earns $10,700 gross annually.
Given that reality, it is no surprise Mr. Scott is advocating for labor!
"The U. S. minimum wage of $5.15 an hour has not been raised in nearly a decade and we believe it is out of date with the times," Scott noted. "We can see first-hand at Wal-Mart how many of our customers are struggling to get by. Our customers simply don't have the money to buy basic necessities between pay checks. . . .While it is unusual for us to take a public position on a public policy issue of this kind, we simply believe it is time for Congress to take a responsible look at the minimum wage and other legislation that may help working families."
I gotta tell you, things are out of hand if Wal-Mart, one of the nation's largest employers in the service industry, is lobbying for higher wages!
Scott knows that lifting the minimum is needed, as are other steps to insure that every working American can carve out a decent life.
It is something, isn't it? In the United States a growing number of public leaders in social equity and just policy are emerging from the business sector.
Auto makers and airline executives call for a national health plan.
Last Saturday evening here in Dallas, Bono, the leader of the rock group, U-2, offered a revival-like message concerning world hunger and poverty.
Spiritual messages about real life in the real world.
Will people of faith and their communities of faith join in?
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P. S. For those of you who live in North Texas and have access to KERA Channel 13--our PBS affliate--you may want to be aware of the programming for tomorrow evening, November 1:
Life in the Balance: Public Health Care In Texas
Tuesday, November 1 at 10 p.m. on KERA 13
The health care system in Texas is in turmoil — and the impact reaches far beyond indigent patients crowding public hospitals. As health care professionals and policymakers agonize over which patients deserve their attention, resources at public and private hospitals alike are stretched thin by a growing load of patients who can't pay their bills, driving the costs of care ever higher for those who can. This award-winning KERA documentary scrutinizes the system's failures and success as it documents an uninsured young mother of four coping with breast cancer.
10 comments:
Larry,
Do you think he's really advocating it, or trying to look good after dragging down wages in every market he enters? I agree the private sector's slowly developing a more responsible outlook, but I have trouble trusting a company who's routinely caught using heavily-underpaid illegal immigrant labor and undercuts unions who have set wage levels above minimum wages.
I admit I don't have primary sources for this - if I'm wrong, I'd definitely like to know the truth.
And regardless of their past, if Wal-Mart is truly interested in making life better for their employees and customers, then more power to them.
Charles
Charles, thanks for the post.
Your questions are sound and well-advised for sure. The report I read was from Fortune 500's website and it contained the very questions that you raise coming from labor advocates who document the same concerns and past facts that your bring up.
I really don't know what Wal-Mart's motive is here or whether it is pure or mixed. My point was simply that a major corporation is on record in favor of raising the minimum wage. To may way of thinking, this simple signals just how bad things are for wage laborers in this country. Any analysis of real earnings over the past several decades reveals that working people are getting poorer while those at the very top are gaining in an amazing way.
The other key point for me is the role or lack thereof among people of faith in advocating for better outcomes for people who work hard in this country.
Keep posting!
I would simply hope that some of WalMart's execs were so morally outraged with the state of working class America right now that they concocted this reason for WalMart to support raising the minimum wage and sold it to the other execs.
Whatever the case, its good to see some movement in the right direction, however, if all the pressure to raise the minimum wage comes from Big Business, then incentive for large scale labor organizing will disapear and we'll only see small gains .
Does anyone know how much Wal-Mart starts of paying its full-time general, non-skilled labor? I agree that minimum wage must be raised, but I certainly hope before Wal-Mart and other execs raise a fuss that they will put there money where their mouth is at.
I am not sure about the Wal-Mart pay scale, so I cannot pre-judge. However, back home I have a friend who works at Wal-Mart and she is a single Mother of two children and she is below the poverty level.
John is exactly right about the Wal-Mart pay scale. The point here though is that the company recognizes that if people don't make more than what the minimum pays their bottom line suffers because people at the bottom have so little income with which to work.
interesting idea, c hand. but if that's the case, should we even have a minimum wage? or, rathter, should we allow employers to pay as little as workers will accept?
if you think we should have a minimum wage, what is its purpose? is the rate of $5.15 achieving that purpose?
It is tempting to suspect that Mr. Scott had a more selfish motive while supporting an increase in the minimum wage. Workers with higher wages will have greater purchasing power and, consequently, better customers at Walmart. But scepticism apart, the fact that a business leader of such stature has made such a statement is commendable enough, and something to be thankful about. If more business and political leaders realise that looking after the needs of the poor, low wage earners does not necessarily mean disaster, tehn, we might just see more reasons to rejoice.
I wonder why no one ever questions "wages" at the other end of the economic ladder? What about a cap on income for those at the top? One reason why prices continue to rise (you've noticed that they do even though we have had no increase in wages at the bottom, right?)is that shareholders and CEOs demand everything they can get from the system and from consumers.
The mythical notion persists that this creates more "good jobs" for labor. Really? With outsourcing, free trade and the "one-world economy" labor at the bottom here is stuck and the paralysis is spreading into the middle class.
Why does no one ever question "wages" at the top?
What's needed is a comprehensive package for low-income persons that will include a minimum wage increase and a number of other public benefits.
The points you raise about outsourcing are valid and there may not be a break through until wages in China, India and Third World labor markets see a comparable rise in wages--which I suspect will not be in my lifetime!
Our society must come up with plans that value labor differently. While the number of low-income laborers is enormous, the expectations of shareholders and the commitment of citizens to do the right thing by hard working people is still a value issue to press.
What about tariffs or even import bans on products from companies whose wages are not the lesser of 1) 150% of their national average, or 2) US minimum wages? Seems like this would put upward pressure on other countries' wages without instituting our minimum wage abruptly on other countries. It would still be cheaper to outsource labor, at least for a while, but I'd rather see other countries come up to our wages rather than (eventually) our wages fall to their levels.
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