Posted on 05/17/2014 8:54:15 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
When I woke up to see the news, I could hardly believe it: President Obama is planning a visit to the Mountain View Wal-Mart where I work.
But the excitement quickly passed when I found out the store would be shutting down hours in advance of his visit. I wouldn’t be able to tell the president what it’s like to work at Wal-Mart and what it’s like to struggle on low wages, without the hours I need. I am living at the center of the income inequality that he speaks about so often, and I wanted to talk to him about how to change this problem.
My situation is not unlike that of many of the 825,000 Wal-Mart associates – and many other Americans – who are working hard, but just can’t keep up. Most of us aren’t even paid $25,000 a year even though we work at the largest employer in the country and one that makes $16 billion in profits.
I wanted to tell the president what it’s like working – and living – like this.
Things have always been tight. After four years working at Wal-Mart in Mountain View, I am bringing home about $400 every two weeks (I’d like to get more hours, but I’m lucky if I work 32 hours a week). That’s not enough to pay for bills, gas and food. All I can afford to eat for lunch is a cup of coffee and a bag of potato chips. I’ve always done everything possible to stretch paychecks and scrape by. Sometimes it means not getting enough to eat.
But then I got some bad news that made stretching my budget impossible.
Two months ago, I started feeling ill. My doctor told me I needed to take a week off to have a series of medical tests. Every day for a week I went to the hospital and had to pay $30, $60 or $100 in co-pays for each appointment, test and X-ray.
With these additional expenses and without a paycheck for the week I was out, it pushed me over the edge. I didn’t have enough money to pay the rent.
Right now, I don’t have a place to call home.
I sleep on the floor of my son’s living room because I can’t afford my own place. All of my belongings are in my car. I don’t know where to send my mail.
I used to think, “At least I have my health and my family.” But my doctor thinks I may have colon cancer, and with all of the money I still owe the hospital, I’m not sure how to finish the tests and get treatment. Even though I do have insurance through Wal-Mart, the co-pays are more than I can afford with only $400 every two weeks.
I wanted to tell the president I am scared. I am scared for my health. I am scared for the future for my grandkids. And I am scared and sad about the direction that companies like Wal-Mart are taking our country.
I don’t wish the struggle I’m facing onto anyone. But sadly, my situation isn’t unique. I know that I am one of many living in the Wal-Mart economy who has no financial stability. We expect to work until our deaths because we don’t have any retirement savings and are concerned about the future in front of our children and grandchildren.
There are so many of us who have it so hard – trying to live paycheck to paycheck. While the president is here visiting my store, I want him to look inside at what is really happening at Wal-Mart.
I want the president to help us and tell Wal-Mart to pay us enough to cover the bills and take care of our families. That doesn’t seem like too much to ask from such a profitable company, a company that sets the standard for jobs in this country. And I hope it’s not too much to ask from a president who believes that income inequality is the defining challenge of our time.
I will offer you a few thoughts on this statement. There was a time when you would be dead on correct. I worked 'starter' type jobs like these and would fallback on them as betweeners, Christmas bankrolling jobs...etc. You get it, these were the jobs that often 'filled in' the extra financial needs when things ran short, when the 16 year old son/daughter learned their 'recreation' money came from 'earning it.'
BUT, that is not how it is today for millions of Americans. In fact, if one listens to the rhetoric coming out of the Democrat party, one quickly realizes these are the 'new careers' in the post collapse America.
Wait? What are you talking about, 'post collapse America?' We haven't collapsed yet? It is coming, but not here ...yet.
On the contrary, as we watch the apathy of the worker being encouraged by the political, we have entered the post collapse phase of lowered expectations and the unwinding is very well underway.
This means to the great unwashed, life in America isn't going to get better. One needs to consider the "Why do all these workers feel locked/trapped into these low-skill set jobs?" What is the propaganda that keeps them stuck in this rut?
I grew up in my early working years on the coat tails of Carter/Reagan. Reagan, while being a great orator, restored America's vision of herself, restored her belief in herself.
Obama isn't doing that, he isn't lifting anyone up to dream. In fact, listen to their rhetoric...it is about settling for one's lot in life. It is about knowing one's position in the New American Economy.
Ms Ramos, working at Wal Mart while I was finishing up my education... I didn't have kids then...
There is something called a post office box... the smallest is about 15 for 6 months...
Your vote must be pretty cheap what with you being so hard up and all. How about a one way ticket to the workers paradise of North Korea!
Another worse job was at an Office Max. The manager could make Obama look like a leader. I stayed at Office Max for 2 years. Got transferred to a better store.
If she's only working 35 hours a week she could get another job AND go to school to get some skills.
She writes very well. Much better than the average college graduate and the average human resource person. Why doesn't she want to get a writing job?
(answer: the person who wrote this already has a writing job)
Coffee and chips? My BS meter is pinging!!
Bullfeathers!
The new standard for part-timers is now less then 30 hours a week thanks to ObammyCare. There is no way a savvy employer like WalMart is going to risk paying her more.
She is another victim of this fascist law, not of WalMart but she is too stupid to realize it.
Assuming 800,000 working at Wal-Mart making $25,000 is $400 billion in wages for $16 billion in profits or profits of 5% on labor. What do you want lady, a wage of $26,250 and no profits?
So sorry to hear that. What a trauma it must have been. So glad you are still here freeping!
But you'll agree that this Walmart lady's story is nothing like your story, yes? In today's litigious world of medicine, it would be incredibly rare for an MD to tell a patient he "thinks you have cancer" unless he is so certain that he is ready to begin immediate treatment, as in your case.
"Welcome to Wal-Mart....Now get your s--t, and get out!"
This guy has been at Wal-Mart for four years and has not even made it to Department Manager.
I work at Wal-Mart and while it is not perfect there are plenty of opportunities to move up.
So if this guy is still at 32 hours a week and making $400 every two weeks he must still be at the entry job he took when he started.
Walmart has done more to raise the standard of living of the “poor” than all the feral government programs combined. We can’t have that, so let’s make them pay their employees the same rate as government employees.
And then she wonders why there are no jobs.
What they are is inspiration to not have to do them forever.
She’s getting meat and drink. Just not as much as if she had an actual marketable skill. I did time in fastfood, I know all about life at the bottom of the food chain, which is why I went back to school and got some skills.
My B/S meter maxed out on this pantload of a ghost-written article.
Six years ago, after retirement, I had a beer-money job at the local Wal-Mart as a night stocker. Basic rate was $10 and hour plus another dollar for the graveyard shift. Got 20c an hour raise every year for top rated reviews. After taxes I brought home $700 for two weeks - paid off a “new” used car in record time.
That store seemed to be a Gulag for managers/others who screwed up and were sent there as punishment. That attitude drifted down and more than once I tangled with some idiotic store management policies. I talked with others who came from different stores and they said this one was “unusual”.
Some of those policies made the bean-counters happy but were badly implemented. For instance we were threatened with cut hours the second time we had even one freaking minute of overtime. I told the bozo that would result in people queuing up a couple of minutes early at the time clock. That brought the threat of anyone seen doing that (cameras) would be fired.
I quit after three years when my good supervisors were replaced by people with NO people-handling skills. One trick they pulled was during a holiday week, they paid you for the holiday, but then worked you only four days. The first time that did that after the holiday, but not the week, was over. “Quick! Take tomorrow off!”
If you did rack up legitimate OT, you were told to go home when the 40 hour total was reached. They pulled that one after the fact. Guess who wouldn’t do OT any more?
That being said, I was never overworked or treated badly - just felt chiseled by their policies (”good management”) and was exposed to some mid-level people who were incredibly stupid. Was repeatedly offered Dept Supervisor, but told them this was not a career job for me and got the deer-in-headlights reaction.
A few months after I quit, I got a 401K disbursement of $500 - I didn’t even know they had a 401K, so it was a pleasant surprise.
W-M gets bashed a lot - some deserved, but mostly not. They are “bad” because they are not unionized.
I would say that nearly $140,000 a year is more than just decent....people with skills and college degrees make a lot less....
True, it looks like it could be. There could be genuine difficulties to address, and one of them would be the way Obamacare limits the amount of work that people can undertake.
shes already packed and ready to go. Walmart is paying high teens to start in North Dakota near the oil fields.
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