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On April 18 2014 11:12 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2014 11:05 zlefin wrote:
re: snipedsoul
I don't think one job is supposed to support a family of four; more like 2 jobs. One job should be enough to support one person, (with one optional child).
As to cost of living, i'd need to run some numbers to figure it all out; but costs aren't always so bad if you're frugal.
Let me see what I can come up with. Also note that costs of living vary substantially in different places. In a country where a single income used to be sufficient to feed a family of four, in a world where the mechanisation of labour and increased efficiency mean that a single individual's labour is far more effective than at any point in the past and the labour required to provide for yourself has never been lower you're saying Americans need to work harder. The rest of the western world is trying to work fewer hours and to spread the jobs that still need doing between more people through 3 day weekends and part time work but in America a third child is now a luxury beyond your means.
Hard work isn't a bad thing; and Europe does have some good stuff; but it's economies are hardly an example of greatness for the most part. You don't need to spread the work, you can have people do more overall work; it's not like there's a finite amount of work to do.
The 50's were more of an economic anomaly, and furthermore, living at THAT level might well be achievable today very affordably; but people aren't living at that level, but at a higher one.
Also, i'm not that interested in this silly part of the argument; now if sniped soul wants to go over the costings for a family, that'd be interesting; if he's willing to accept my claim of 2 people working in that family of four.
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Walmart employs 1.4 million people in the US. Their employees received $6.2 billion in government assistance in 2013, or approximately $4,400 per employee. An average wage/benefit increase of $2.20 per hour per employee would equal $4,400 assuming a full time schedule of 2000 hours per year.
Walmart isn't paying that extra $2.20 per hour, so taxpayers have to. That's a subsidy.
On April 18 2014 11:27 zlefin wrote:
Also, i'm not that interested in this silly part of the argument; now if sniped soul wants to go over the costings for a family, that'd be interesting; if he's willing to accept my claim of 2 people working in that family of four.
I already said that both parents can't work because daycare costs more than minimum wage pays. The budget requires absolutely no government assistance as that was part of the discussion.
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Liberals useing scare tactics to make sweat shops and factories in third worlds being a bad thing pisses me off first and formost. People are being brought out of the middle ages and into the modern world and people act like it should be a path filled with literacy and liveing standards over night.
What walmart is doing in china and other asian nations is worlds better then the failure of the "war on poverty" ever could do.
Edit Welcome to page 1000 everyone. http://fivethirtyeight.com/ Just want to plug 538 again,
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Yeah, your talking nonsense then; you're relying on overpriced daycare solutions; and probably using poor shopping techniques to arrive at the costs you're coming with. So not interested in talking to ya.
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On April 18 2014 11:25 Sermokala wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2014 11:22 SnipedSoul wrote:
Walmart gets $13.5 billion in foodstamp money every year. That amount would be far less if they paid their employees more. It would be the same because their employees arn't the only ones buying food at their stores. Walmart doesn't employ THAT many people. They sell things for cheaper so people looking for cheap (footstamp spenders) go to them. It has nothing to do with how much they pay their people.
It would actually likely be billions less just doing some rough calculations # of employees (reduced to account for higher salaried workers), average amount of food benefit, and a year time frame.
But those low wage workers also derive what many would call a 'benefit' in government provided healthcare that is also being subsidized for significant numbers of their workers further improving their bottom line.
The irony is Walmart thinks taxes are too high but those taxes are needed to pay for the food and healthcare that keeps their employees alive.
If businesses used one of their back room conspiracies to raise wages instead of lowering them they could reduce the burden on the government and therefore themselves.
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On April 18 2014 11:22 SnipedSoul wrote:
Walmart gets $13.5 billion in foodstamp money every year. That amount would be far less if they paid their employees more.
I never said get rid of foodstamps. I am saying that without foodstamps, Walmart would be forced to pay higher wages and the burden of feeding Walmart employees would be taken away from the government and placed on Walmart which is where it belongs.
Force Walmart to pay higher wages and you will reduce the need for foodstamps.
Without foodstamps walmart would NOT be forced to pay more for work. That's what the bulk of the evidence tells us. All you'd be doing is making people poorer.
If you force walmart to pay substantially more, you start to get into the downside of a higher minimum wage.
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On April 18 2014 11:34 zlefin wrote:
Yeah, your talking nonsense then; you're relying on overpriced daycare solutions; and probably using poor shopping techniques to arrive at the costs you're coming with. So not interested in talking to ya.
What sub $7.25 daycare options are you thinking of?
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On April 18 2014 11:34 zlefin wrote:
Yeah, your talking nonsense then; you're relying on overpriced daycare solutions; and probably using poor shopping techniques to arrive at the costs you're coming with. So not interested in talking to ya.
Show me a daycare that charges less than $7.25 per hour without relying on government subsidy.
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On April 18 2014 11:36 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2014 11:22 SnipedSoul wrote:
Walmart gets $13.5 billion in foodstamp money every year. That amount would be far less if they paid their employees more.
I never said get rid of foodstamps. I am saying that without foodstamps, Walmart would be forced to pay higher wages and the burden of feeding Walmart employees would be taken away from the government and placed on Walmart which is where it belongs.
Force Walmart to pay higher wages and you will reduce the need for foodstamps. Without foodstamps walmart would NOT be forced to pay more for work. That's what the bulk of the evidence tells us. All you'd be doing is making people poorer. If you force walmart to pay substantially more, you start to get into the downside of a higher minimum wage.
You said that without foodstamps people would starve. Many Walmart employees are on foodstamps. If foodstamps weren't around, then Walmart would be forced to pay more or their employees would starve.
What evidence? Walmart in my country is forced to pay at least $10.00 per hour and people here are no poorer because of it.
Crap, double post!
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I don't know of any formal daycare places, which would be driven up by land prices and high standards. Find someone you trust, a friend or relative, to watch over kinds; make arrangements.
If there's so many unemployed people, how can there be so much difficulty getting one person to watch several kids for a reasonable price?
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On April 18 2014 11:22 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2014 10:57 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On April 18 2014 10:50 SnipedSoul wrote:
They mention it because they needed to justify why their profits fell 21% in one quarter. I would imagine that shareholders start asking questions after a drop like that.
I would rather Walmart pay a decent wage so that their employees can afford to feed themselves without government help. They added it to that huge list that no one reads to justify why their profits fell? Seems a bit odd, but OK. So what would you propose as a better public policy alternative? Raising the min wage isn't flawless and some of those workers will spend money at Walmart, which you don't like, apparently. How about instead of saying Walmart isn't doing anything counterproductive we work together on solutions to what for many is an obvious problem?
I think expanding things like the EITC would help. Too bad liberals hate walmart so much they stop caring about the poor.
So a raise to the minimum wage might not be the silver bullet.
Walmart's nefarious business practices don't stop in America either... What Walmart does in China is significantly worse and probably more important to their model than their stateside wages and government subsidies.
Are there benefits to businesses like Walmart... Of course there are. The question that opponents of Walmart practices pose is are they worth it? And what I presume puzzles many is why do people like you so staunchly defend Walmart profits being so heavily driven by the expenses they save and the income they derive from the government?
Walmart helps the poor. Why do uncaring liberals like yourself want to stop that?
A public policy solution isn't even necessary. Walmart could go a long way to solve this problem itself. Here's one idea on how it could happen "What that suggests is that even Wal-Mart's investors think the company should pay its employees more, or at least expects it will," says Lee. How much more? Wal-Mart has a book value of $76.7 billion. Take 15.4% of that, and that means investors are looking to get paid $11.8 billion a year. That leaves $101 billion to pay employees. Source
I have no idea wtf kind of math that is...
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On April 18 2014 11:41 zlefin wrote:
I don't know of any formal daycare places, which would be driven up by land prices and high standards. Find someone you trust, a friend or relative, to watch over kinds; make arrangements.
If there's so many unemployed people, how can there be so much difficulty getting one person to watch several kids for a reasonable price?
All my friends and relatives are also working because their families need two incomes as well.
Running a daycare is expensive if you're expected to feed the kids.
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No nieces or nephews who could watch over the rest?
No way to have different parts of the family work at different times/days so there's always someone to watch the kids?
Feeding people isn't that expensive. How much do you pay per person per day for food?
looking a couple pages back; prescription eyewear isn't expensive if you know where to shop. It's quite cheap actually, I don't get why most stores charge such outrageous prices for such simple things.
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On April 18 2014 11:40 SnipedSoul wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2014 11:36 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On April 18 2014 11:22 SnipedSoul wrote:
Walmart gets $13.5 billion in foodstamp money every year. That amount would be far less if they paid their employees more.
I never said get rid of foodstamps. I am saying that without foodstamps, Walmart would be forced to pay higher wages and the burden of feeding Walmart employees would be taken away from the government and placed on Walmart which is where it belongs.
Force Walmart to pay higher wages and you will reduce the need for foodstamps. Without foodstamps walmart would NOT be forced to pay more for work. That's what the bulk of the evidence tells us. All you'd be doing is making people poorer. If you force walmart to pay substantially more, you start to get into the downside of a higher minimum wage. You said that without foodstamps people would starve. Many Walmart employees are on foodstamps. If foodstamps weren't around, then Walmart would be forced to pay more or their employees would starve. What evidence? Walmart in my country is forced to pay at least $10.00 per hour and people here are no poorer because of it. Crap, double post!
The evidence that EITC and other subsides go to businesses in the form of lower wages is scarce. Conversely evidence that EITC and the like reduce poverty are well documented. If you were correct, this wouldn't be the case. EITC and SNAP wouldn't help anyone since the added benefit would just get shifted to the employer.
The negative impacts of a higher minimum wage are controversial but well documented. The higher the minimum wage goes, the more likely it is to reduce employment. No one seriously thinks you can raise the minimum wage to $30 and have no one lose their job 
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All the children between 5 and 18 are in school, so they can't watch the young ones during working hours. They could potentially take care of the kids for a few hours after school, but that doesn't solve the 7-4 period.
Staggering work periods would be fine if minimum wage jobs actually had set schedules instead of assigning you a shift and expecting you to show up.
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On April 18 2014 11:41 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2014 11:22 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 18 2014 10:57 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On April 18 2014 10:50 SnipedSoul wrote:
They mention it because they needed to justify why their profits fell 21% in one quarter. I would imagine that shareholders start asking questions after a drop like that.
I would rather Walmart pay a decent wage so that their employees can afford to feed themselves without government help. They added it to that huge list that no one reads to justify why their profits fell? Seems a bit odd, but OK. So what would you propose as a better public policy alternative? Raising the min wage isn't flawless and some of those workers will spend money at Walmart, which you don't like, apparently. How about instead of saying Walmart isn't doing anything counterproductive we work together on solutions to what for many is an obvious problem? I think expanding things like the EITC would help. Too bad liberals hate walmart so much they stop caring about the poor. Show nested quote +So a raise to the minimum wage might not be the silver bullet.
Walmart's nefarious business practices don't stop in America either... What Walmart does in China is significantly worse and probably more important to their model than their stateside wages and government subsidies.
Are there benefits to businesses like Walmart... Of course there are. The question that opponents of Walmart practices pose is are they worth it? And what I presume puzzles many is why do people like you so staunchly defend Walmart profits being so heavily driven by the expenses they save and the income they derive from the government? Walmart helps the poor. Why do uncaring liberals like yourself want to stop that? Show nested quote +A public policy solution isn't even necessary. Walmart could go a long way to solve this problem itself. Here's one idea on how it could happen "What that suggests is that even Wal-Mart's investors think the company should pay its employees more, or at least expects it will," says Lee. How much more? Wal-Mart has a book value of $76.7 billion. Take 15.4% of that, and that means investors are looking to get paid $11.8 billion a year. That leaves $101 billion to pay employees. Source I have no idea wtf kind of math that is...
By your use of 'help the poor' you could say N.Korea is 'helping the poor'
Maybe you should bother doing/looking into the math then you might not be so clueless?
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On April 18 2014 11:48 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2014 11:40 SnipedSoul wrote:On April 18 2014 11:36 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On April 18 2014 11:22 SnipedSoul wrote:
Walmart gets $13.5 billion in foodstamp money every year. That amount would be far less if they paid their employees more.
I never said get rid of foodstamps. I am saying that without foodstamps, Walmart would be forced to pay higher wages and the burden of feeding Walmart employees would be taken away from the government and placed on Walmart which is where it belongs.
Force Walmart to pay higher wages and you will reduce the need for foodstamps. Without foodstamps walmart would NOT be forced to pay more for work. That's what the bulk of the evidence tells us. All you'd be doing is making people poorer. If you force walmart to pay substantially more, you start to get into the downside of a higher minimum wage. You said that without foodstamps people would starve. Many Walmart employees are on foodstamps. If foodstamps weren't around, then Walmart would be forced to pay more or their employees would starve. What evidence? Walmart in my country is forced to pay at least $10.00 per hour and people here are no poorer because of it. Crap, double post! The evidence that EITC and other subsides go to businesses in the form of lower wages is scarce. Conversely evidence that EITC and the like reduce poverty are well documented. If you were correct, this wouldn't be the case. EITC and SNAP wouldn't help anyone since the added benefit would just get shifted to the employer. The negative impacts of a higher minimum wage are controversial but well documented. The higher the minimum wage goes, the more likely it is to reduce employment. No one seriously thinks you can raise the minimum wage to $30 and have no one lose their job
I know that those programs help reduce poverty. The problem is that congress keeps cutting them without forcing employers to make up the difference.
I never said raise minimum wage to $30 which would be a 4x increase. I said raise it to $10 which would be a 33% increase and be more in line with what the minimum wage would be if it were tied to inflation.
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Are the liberals here also going to argue that nationalized healthcare is a business subsidy? That the government paying for healthcare pushes down wages?
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On April 18 2014 11:54 SnipedSoul wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2014 11:48 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On April 18 2014 11:40 SnipedSoul wrote:On April 18 2014 11:36 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On April 18 2014 11:22 SnipedSoul wrote:
Walmart gets $13.5 billion in foodstamp money every year. That amount would be far less if they paid their employees more.
I never said get rid of foodstamps. I am saying that without foodstamps, Walmart would be forced to pay higher wages and the burden of feeding Walmart employees would be taken away from the government and placed on Walmart which is where it belongs.
Force Walmart to pay higher wages and you will reduce the need for foodstamps. Without foodstamps walmart would NOT be forced to pay more for work. That's what the bulk of the evidence tells us. All you'd be doing is making people poorer. If you force walmart to pay substantially more, you start to get into the downside of a higher minimum wage. You said that without foodstamps people would starve. Many Walmart employees are on foodstamps. If foodstamps weren't around, then Walmart would be forced to pay more or their employees would starve. What evidence? Walmart in my country is forced to pay at least $10.00 per hour and people here are no poorer because of it. Crap, double post! The evidence that EITC and other subsides go to businesses in the form of lower wages is scarce. Conversely evidence that EITC and the like reduce poverty are well documented. If you were correct, this wouldn't be the case. EITC and SNAP wouldn't help anyone since the added benefit would just get shifted to the employer. The negative impacts of a higher minimum wage are controversial but well documented. The higher the minimum wage goes, the more likely it is to reduce employment. No one seriously thinks you can raise the minimum wage to $30 and have no one lose their job I know that those programs help reduce poverty. The problem is that congress keeps cutting them without forcing employers to make up the difference. I never said raise minimum wage to $30 which would be a 4x increase. I said raise it to $10 which would be a 33% increase and be more in line with what the minimum wage would be if it were tied to inflation.
If they reduce poverty than they are not subsidies to businesses.
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On April 18 2014 11:52 SnipedSoul wrote:
All the children between 5 and 18 are in school, so they can't watch the young ones during working hours. They could potentially take care of the kids for a few hours after school, but that doesn't solve the 7-4 period.
Staggering work periods would be fine if minimum wage jobs actually had set schedules instead of assigning you a shift and expecting you to show up.
Or employees had any real control over their hours besides finding a different job (which probably isn't available with the required hours anyway)
The idea that people pay out the @$$ for childcare because they were just to lazy to find an alternative is something only someone without experience would even suggest.
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EPT
