The Democrats Are To Blame For The Plight Of Hourly Employees

Agent11

Diamond Member
Jan 22, 2006
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Forbes: Why Obamacare Incentivizes Part-time Jobs

I've worked quite a few minimum wage and low wage hourly jobs in my time, I can tell you from experience that 40 hours a week with the possibility of overtime is a hell of a lot better than 29 without. . . But you get the crappiest health care America has to offer for free!

Yet the debate on working class people and how to help them seems to focus on increasing the min wage, which would put more pressure on employers to cut jobs and automate/streamline production.

I think it's obvious now that the Democrats have driven the working man and woman up shit creek without a paddle, while lying to them the whole way.
 
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dphantom

Diamond Member
Jan 14, 2005
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while anecdotal only, I personally know 1 family member and 3 friends (all in their early 20's) who were working 32-40+ hours per week and are now down to 29 hours on average or less. No additional staff were hired either except in one case they did add 1 more part-time position.
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
83,718
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Forbes: Why Obamacare Incentivizes Part-time Jobs

I've worked quite a few minimum wage and low wage hourly jobs in my time, I can tell you from experience that 40 hours a week with the possibility of overtime is a hell of a lot better than 29 without. . . But you get the crappiest health care America has to offer for free!

Yet the debate on working class people and how to help them seems to focus on increasing the min wage, which would put more pressure on employers to cut jobs and automate/streamline production.

I think it's obvious now that the Democrats have driven the working man and woman up shit creek without a paddle, while lying to them the whole way.

Go read the economics literature about the relationship of the minimum wage to unemployment.
 

Agent11

Diamond Member
Jan 22, 2006
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The way to deal with Walmart, if you were to want to, would be to address trade law. The time for that was over a decade ago though. Now it would do more harm than good without first incentivizing industry to shift before hand.
 
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Jhhnn

IN MEMORIAM
Nov 11, 1999
62,365
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Post three and the diversion has already started.

That not diversion at all. The OP makes several assertions of fact that are *not* fact, then bases an argument upon them.

The simple truth is that private enterprise sees no need for all the labor available in this country. Offshoring & automation have seen to that. High productivity & full employment would create a market glut, destroying margins. Yet they seek the same sales & profit that more employment provides, and they seek to blame anything & anybody else for the social ills they create in the process.

Obamacare is just the latest excuse for a process they've been implementing for decades, which is disposable part time, temporary, & contract jobs alongside offshoring & automation.

But it's all Obama's fault, of course.
 

Texashiker

Lifer
Dec 18, 2010
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Texashiker

Lifer
Dec 18, 2010
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If my math is right, which it is usually wrong,

119 billion profit divided by 2 million employees = $50,000 for each employee above and beyond what they are currently making.

So walmart can afford to pay its employees almost 50K a year more than what they are being paid right now.

Lets just half that and say $25k more a year, which should leave walmart with a nice profit of 59.5 billion.

In other words, walmart could probably double its current wages with no real impact on the bottom line.
 

brandonb

Diamond Member
Oct 17, 2006
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A lot of businesses in my area are reducing hours, and/or hiring temporary workers just to avoid all the benefits entirely. Leaving it up to the temp agencies to handle or to provide benefits if they choose to do so (and they probably won't either.)
 

brandonb

Diamond Member
Oct 17, 2006
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If my math is right, which it is usually wrong,

119 billion divided by 2 million = 50,000

So walmart can afford to pay its employees almost 50K a year more than what they are being paid right now.

Lets just half that and say $25k more a year, which should leave walmart with a nice profit of 59.5 billion.

In other words, walmart could probably double its current wages with no real impact on the bottom line.

You do realize Walmart has an operating margin of less than 5% right?

That means 5% of revenue is left after paying for employees. The last 5% is used to pay for the building, utilities, admin, marketing, etc. That isn't much. Sure with huge numbers it seems like they can offer a lot more, but they can't as a business. 5% is pretty abysmal operating margin for any business. The only way Walmart stays in business is because in the end, that 5% is giving them a lot of money. Any other business would fail with those numbers.

It would be stupid for Walmart to do anything, as it would only raise prices to compensate.
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
83,718
47,407
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How much did walmart make in profit over the past few years?

Gross profit doesn't take into account all expenses, so their actual profits are almost certainly considerably less than that.

That being said, you are right that his argument about margins is irrelevant on its own when talking about how much they can afford to pay their employees.
 

Exophase

Diamond Member
Apr 19, 2012
4,439
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If my math is right, which it is usually wrong,

119 billion profit divided by 2 million employees = $50,000 for each employee above and beyond what they are currently making.

So walmart can afford to pay its employees almost 50K a year more than what they are being paid right now.

Lets just half that and say $25k more a year, which should leave walmart with a nice profit of 59.5 billion.

In other words, walmart could probably double its current wages with no real impact on the bottom line.

The gross profit figure you're using is nowhere close to the money Wal-Mart actually made (net profit). Please read this. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_profit