A new report has revealed that six heirs of Sam Walton's Walmart fortune are now wealthier than 42% of Americans combined. Meanwhile, the average Walmart worker earns less than $15,000 a year. Read the new report from the Economic Policy Institute.
The Walton family is now worth about $100 billion -- up from $89.5 billion just two years ago. While the Waltons and Walmart were growing richer, most Americans were growing poorer. This is no accident. Walmart is the nation's largest employer and its business model is to pay poverty-level wages with few benefits and to manufacture the toys and clothing it sells in its US stores in sweatshops in Asia and elsewhere. Several scholars have called the widening gap between the rich and everyone else the "Walmart-ization" of our economy.
So the debate over Walmart's efforts to open new stores in Altadena and perhaps Pasadena -- to get their foot-in-the-door with groceries stores and then expand into a full-blown super-store -- is both a local issue and a global one. It is important to see the bigger picture because Walmart certainly does.
The stats have been posted ad nauseam on Altadena Patch & Altadenablog. Something new regarding this would be refreshing.
If you don't like the wages Walmart pays complain to your government that sets minimum wage. If you don't mine paying $15.00 for a head of lettuce and $20.00 for a big mac than yes, all workers in America should earn $50,000.00 a year with full benefits.
I freely admit that I have a double standard. A struggling mom and pop doesn't pay healthcare because it can't. A company where it's owners combined income equals HALF of all the income in this country, doesn't pay because it chooses not to. A good corporate citizen, IMO, can decide that instead of a net worth of 100 billion dollars, it might choose to be worth 75 Billion dollars (numbers out of thin air), so that it's employees don't need to be on welfare or food stamps in order to get by. But that is just my opinion, one clearly not shared by walmart, or most conglomerates.
If you want to compare unionized stores to non union just shop at Super king where even as crowded as it is you can still get in and out in a reasonable amount of time because they have all of the registers open. Go to Von's or Ralphs and will find 1 or 2 registers open at 6 and 7 pm with huge lines and when you ask why they tell you they're all on break. The service usually sucks. Unions only llimit the number of employees anyone will hire and provide less than stellar service. Stop the complaining. Most areas beg for big name companies to open because they are good for area. They force other businesses to clean up their act and compete.