Ugh… the Pay Gap argument again. Painter, it appears you weren’t around for when I did my analysis on wages, so I’ll post it again.Walmart’s CEO was paid a total compensation package of 25.6m in 2014. This accounts for all the stock, bonds, pay, blah blah blah. Walmart has 1.3 million employees. Let’s say just half of them are full-time employees. That’s still 650,000 employees. That means 40 hours a week. Extrapolating that out, it means it represents 1,352,000,000 man-hours of just full-time employees. I’m not counting even the part-timers in this number. Now, if we take ALL of the CEO’s wages and divide them up evenly (so the CEO makes NOTHING for the year), that translates into an 18-cent-per-hour pay increase. 18 cents. That 18 cents is not going to make any semblance of a meaningful difference to anyone who works there. Accounting for part-time employees, you’re looking at probably closer to the 10-12 cent per hour difference.So, you see… it’s not the “evil CEO’s” that are causing the hardship for the workers at the bottom. You could take the whole board and pay them nothing and pay only the associates, and you’re probably looking at MAYBE $1 per hour difference per employee. CEO’s and other executives are responsible for guiding the business to success. Without them there are no jobs to be had, good bad or otherwise. Not only that, but who are you, or any of us really, to dictate what these people make? If the business wants to keep the corporate leadership that is going to guide the business to be profitable, they pay the people enough to stay.Lastly, the jobs that pay minimum wage are not designed to be “living wage” jobs. Why should they pay a living wage to someone who has no life skills, no work experience, questionable work ethic, and no proven track record? Because when I was growing up, minimum wage jobs were for TEENS. They were not designed for working adults. Instead of criticizing the company’s for not paying a higher wage for these jobs, you should instead criticize the working adults for not adjusting to the times. Once again, we get to feeding the bears. If you pay someone to take a fast-food order or process someone at a checkout $15-20 an hour (because that’s the “living wage” everyone wants to tout), what’s their incentive to go get an education/learn a trade skill/get work experience and get a better job? If you take away the incentive for people to try to get a BETTER job, they won’t go after it. It’s basic human psychology. If you are given a carrot for not working hard, why would you pursue another carrot that requires you to work hard? And yes, I’ve worked fast food when I was a teen. It wasn’t hard.And here’s the last piece that you guys never consider when arguing that minimum wage should be a living wage. What happens to those who fought tooth and nail to get to where they are, now earning a living wage? There are arguably MORE people in the middle class than there are at the poverty level. What about them? Basic Economics happens. Companies pay higher wages, they raise their prices. The middle class purchasing power slides down to the “living wage” levels, and they end up at the bottom rung right alongside the minimum wage workers. So because of selfishness and unwillingness to learn a new skill or pursue an education and work your way up to the middle class, you instead drag the middle class down to the bottom group. That will show the rich! Psh. Just like everything else surrounding social engineering and social justice, we are ruining the middle class because the bottom end won’t work to get to the middle, and the top end doesn’t care because they can afford to not care. So the liberal solution is to raise the water level so the poor can climb higher on the ladder. Too bad it drowns those already further up on the ladder. Great plan, guys!
Ugh… the Pay Gap argument again. Painter, it appears you weren’t around for when I did my analysis on wages, so I’ll post it again.Walmart’s CEO was paid a total compensation package of 25.6m in 2014. This accounts for all the stock, bonds, pay, blah blah blah. Walmart has 1.3 million employees. Let’s say just half of them are full-time employees. That’s still 650,000 employees. That means 40 hours a week. Extrapolating that out, it means it represents 1,352,000,000 man-hours of just full-time employees. I’m not counting even the part-timers in this number. Now, if we take ALL of the CEO’s wages and divide them up evenly (so the CEO makes NOTHING for the year), that translates into an 18-cent-per-hour pay increase. 18 cents. That 18 cents is not going to make any semblance of a meaningful difference to anyone who works there. Accounting for part-time employees, you’re looking at probably closer to the 10-12 cent per hour difference.So, you see… it’s not the “evil CEO’s” that are causing the hardship for the workers at the bottom. You could take the whole board and pay them nothing and pay only the associates, and you’re probably looking at MAYBE $1 per hour difference per employee. CEO’s and other executives are responsible for guiding the business to success. Without them there are no jobs to be had, good bad or otherwise. Not only that, but who are you, or any of us really, to dictate what these people make? If the business wants to keep the corporate leadership that is going to guide the business to be profitable, they pay the people enough to stay.Lastly, the jobs that pay minimum wage are not designed to be “living wage” jobs. Why should they pay a living wage to someone who has no life skills, no work experience, questionable work ethic, and no proven track record? Because when I was growing up, minimum wage jobs were for TEENS. They were not designed for working adults. Instead of criticizing the company’s for not paying a higher wage for these jobs, you should instead criticize the working adults for not adjusting to the times. Once again, we get to feeding the bears. If you pay someone to take a fast-food order or process someone at a checkout $15-20 an hour (because that’s the “living wage” everyone wants to tout), what’s their incentive to go get an education/learn a trade skill/get work experience and get a better job? If you take away the incentive for people to try to get a BETTER job, they won’t go after it. It’s basic human psychology. If you are given a carrot for not working hard, why would you pursue another carrot that requires you to work hard? And yes, I’ve worked fast food when I was a teen. It wasn’t hard.And here’s the last piece that you guys never consider when arguing that minimum wage should be a living wage. What happens to those who fought tooth and nail to get to where they are, now earning a living wage? There are arguably MORE people in the middle class than there are at the poverty level. What about them? Basic Economics happens. Companies pay higher wages, they raise their prices. The middle class purchasing power slides down to the “living wage” levels, and they end up at the bottom rung right alongside the minimum wage workers. So because of selfishness and unwillingness to learn a new skill or pursue an education and work your way up to the middle class, you instead drag the middle class down to the bottom group. That will show the rich! Psh. Just like everything else surrounding social engineering and social justice, we are ruining the middle class because the bottom end won’t work to get to the middle, and the top end doesn’t care because they can afford to not care. So the liberal solution is to raise the water level so the poor can climb higher on the ladder. Too bad it drowns those already further up on the ladder. Great plan, guys!