Re: WGA Strike 90%+ vote to strike

On Sat, 20 Oct 2007 18:41:33 -0500, "Carl" <cengman7@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:


"Josh Hill" <usereplyto@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:gfskh39lal1sco0c1976ejm6a7np7d6531@xxxxxxxxxx

According to a web site I found:

In 2001, sales associates, the most common job in Wal-Mart, earned on
average $8.23 an hour for annual wages of $13,861. The 2001 poverty
line for a family of three was $14,630. ["Is Wal-Mart Too Powerful?",
Business Week, 10/6/03, US Dept of Health and Human Services 2001
Poverty Guidelines, 2001]

A 2003 wage analysis reported that cashiers, the second most common
job, earn approximately $7.92 per hour and work 29 hours a week. This
brings in annual wages of only $11,948. ["Statistical Analysis of
Gender Patterns in Wal-Mart's Workforce", Dr. Richard Drogin 2003]
Wal-Mart Associates don't earn enough to support a family

The average two-person family (one parent and one child) needed
$27,948 to meet basic needs in 2005, well above what Wal-Mart reports
that its average full-time associate earns. Wal-Mart claimed that its
average associate earned $9.68 an hour in 2005. That would make the
average associate's annual wages $17,114. ["Basic Family Budget
Calculator" online at www.epinet.org]

http://www.wakeupwalmart.com/facts/

It seems they're paying poverty-level wages.

Those figures could be very misleading. How many of those workers are high
school students and not people trying to live on those wages?

The people that scream about minimum wages often misreport statistics as
though every high school student working at McDonalds for minimum wage was
trying to live off of $11,000 annually. They aren't, nor are they doing
without health care. Trying to claim them as working poor is disingenuous
at best.

Low end jobs are supposed to be stepping stones... you do them to get the
money (and sometimes experience) that you need to move on to something
better.

I'd find a higher evidence to speculation ratio more convincing, Carl.
Anyway, why do you assume that the sort of person who has to take a
job at Wal-Mart -- and we aren't talking about moonlighting high
school students, who are a tiny percentage of the workforce and don't
work 29 hours a week -- have the skills, qualifications, and ability
necessary to "move on to something better"? We aren't talking law
school graduate here.

--
Josh

"We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals.
We know now that it is bad economics." - Franklin D. Roosevelt

.

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  • Re: WGA Strike 90%+ vote to strike
    ... In 2001, sales associates, the most common job in Wal-Mart, earned on ... average $8.23 an hour for annual wages of $13,861. ... school students, who are a tiny percentage of the workforce and don't ...
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