Posted on 06/20/2016 6:58:31 AM PDT by grundle
Wal-Mart is "hugely profitable," writes the National Employment Law Project (NELP) in a recent commentary, generating "$482 billion in revenue in fiscal year 2016." Here, the writer falsely equates revenue (the money a company takes in before subtracting expenses) and profit (how much a company makes after it pays its costs). It's a common tactic used to shock readers and inflate the perception of a company's finances.
Wal-Mart's actual profit, according to SEC filings, was only 3 percent of its total revenue. That works out to roughly $6,400 dollars in profit for each of the company's 2.3 million employeesa profit that could be wiped out with a $15 minimum wage.
Labor advocates are also fond of appealing to their readers' sense of fairness by arguing that CEO pay at the company proves it can afford a $15 minimum wage. But the math here also doesn't add up. Wal-Mart CEO Doug McMillon earned a combined $19.4 million compensation package in 2015, including salary, stock options, and other perks. That makes for a dramatic sound bite. But if this money was somehow divided between all 2.3 million Wal-Mart associates, each associate would get a one-time $8.43 bonusthat's it.
The fights for $15 have even tried to appeal to conservative hearts by arguing that the higher pay requirement will reduce employees' need for public support programs. It's debatable whether this argument is offered in good faith: California Assemblyman Kevin McCarty (D., Sacramento) recently let slip his mask of concern for the taxpayer when he and his fellow legislators pushed to raise the income thresholds for a public program so that recipients of the state's new $15 minimum wage could still qualify for state benefits. So much for ending welfare as we know it.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...
Outstanding headline. LOL. Math, America’s lost art.
Thanks for the information about your own experiences.
As you point out, a business will pass along their costs of doing business, to their customers. Otherwise they won’t be in business very long.
Just a quick anecdote to illustrate this. I sometimes get a combo meal at a major fast food chain, which costs me about $7.50 here in high tax California.
I was traveling back east last year, and pulled in a drive thru of the same fast food chain, and ordered the same meal. The cost there was $4.35. I believe that was in West Virginia.
Exactly. It’s like when these liberal lunatics want American wages for employees at a textile facility in Singapore. They don’t realize that by paying 1000 employees in the city $30,000 a year when the average annual wage is $2000 a year, it will absolutely demolish the local economy.
The minimum wage should be zero. When my kids were starting out, I was astounded what they were doing for work and getting paid $7/50 an hour for. The beginner jobs aren’t worth that and certainly aren’t worth $15.
It is really very simple. Workers through their labor must produce enough revenue to pay their wage plus the other fixed and variable costs of operation. Consider that a worker at Wal- Mart with a $15 per hour wage must on average generate at least $15 of revenue just to pay their wage. Realistically most Wal -Mart workers aren’t that productive. Since labor and capital are interchangeable higher wages simply mean that it becomes more efficient to automate than pay higher wages. Watch for check out lines at Wal-Mart for an increasing number of self check out and fewer cashiers
“Increasing their pay while increasing the welfare limits will keep your taxes paying for the welfare.”
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That is the goal. Elimination of the middle class.
Salary workers aren’t going to get a bump, but costs of good and services will go up, as will taxes. That means the dental hygienists, medical assistants, and administrative workers, many who hold a 2-year degree or certification, are going to suddenly make no more than a typical HS student, or unskilled burger flipper.
Eventually all salaries will rise, but not before the pain of higher taxes and goods takes its toll. This is just artificial inflation, and the government and the reps handing out the “free money” are the only winners.
It's already happened at my local Super Walmart. The first 6 regular registers were replaced last week with 4 self checkout ones. One live Walmart person assisting those using the 4.
I took a look at what the local Wal-Mart pays in property taxes. Yikes.
I’ve worked with some businesses which made a net profit of a nickel on the dollar. Many businesses operate on narrow margins, and liberals just don’t understand how this works.
Two generations ago retail used to be a stepping stone. A first rung on the job ladder for young people, or supplemental income for housewives.
Today it’s just about the only job out there for unskilled labor. The factories that would have provided the next rung are gone, shipped overseas.
Hence people trapped in these jobs are doing the only thing that makes sense for their lives. Turning to labor activism for better pay and benefits.
You dance to that tune Walmart, sooner or later you have to pay the Globalization Piper.
Try living and running a business in a State that requires you to pay disability insurance on employees. A painting business has to pay $4 per every hour a worker spends on a job.
Liberals do seem to have a struggle with basic financial math. Or belief in the money tree. They play this revenue game with “Big Oil” as well. Funny they never turn their focus to the outrageous revenues of say Apple, or the tech industry.
From what I’ve experienced at WalMart’s, they could hire half as many employees who are twice as efficient at $15 an hour and save money. They’d have to learn to say “you’re fired” to achieve that.
How about Ben and Jerry’s when they maintained that anyone can be a CEO and ended up proving the opposite. They held a contest where the winner would be their CEO. He didn’t last long. Their experiment failed and they had to hire a real CEO at free market prices.
I don’t think the government should be involved at all. I’d rather the workers be paid more INSTEAD of my tax dollars going towards their welfare.
Wal-Mart also pays its hourly employees a bonus every quarter. I don’t know if it is only for permanent employees who work so many hours per week. My son works at one of the busiest Wal-Marts in Maine-in the summer one of the busiest in New England if not the country. From about Memorial Day
to the middle of September he is being paid $12.00. Also his bonus is about $400 a quarter.
They’re like: I bought something for fifty cents and I sold it for a dollar. I just made a hundred percent profit.
The truth is probably somewhere between “just anybody” and “only a plutocrat.”
Obamacare was not factored in. Many companies are downsizing because of it.
29 hr.s a week means Obamacare is factored in.
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