RAISE WAGES … CUT HOURS
|| By FITSNEWS || This website has consistently opposed government-mandated wage hikes. Market forces (including people pissed off at establishments that screw over their workers) ought to dictate wages – and government efforts to mandate wage increases will only harm the economy.
Don’t get us wrong: America’s wealth gap is out of control, but the solution isn’t mandating wage increases – it’s ending crony capitalism.
Anyway, Walmart – the largest retailer in the world – recently announced it was raising wages for some of its lowest-paid employees to a whopping $9.00 per hour. Awesome, right?
Um, no … not really.
In order to pay for the $1 billion cost of the wage hikes, Walmart is now … (wait for it) … cutting back on employee hours.
From Bloomberg‘s Shannon Pettypiece …
Regional executives told store managers at the retailer’s annual holiday planning meeting this month to rein in expenses by cutting worker hours they’ve added beyond those allocated to them based on sales projections.
The request has resulted in some stores trimming hours from their schedules, asking employees to leave shifts early or telling them to take longer lunches, according to more than three dozen employees from around the U.S. The reductions started in the past several weeks, even as many stores enter the busy back-to-school shopping period.
LOLz. Seriously though … is anyone surprised?
This is how the free market works, people …
“So there you have it,” our friends at Zero Hedge noted. “Further proof that across-the-board wage hikes – like socialized medicine and free college – is a concept that sounds good when considered in a vacuum, but when implemented is subject to economic realities that conspire to make the end result look far less desirable than proponents might have imagined.”
UPDATE: Walmart responds …
43 comments
Be careful. That’s your largest private employer in SC. You are the Walmart economy.
Beats Obama fucking UNEMPLOYED Economy….you fucking IDIOT.
Unemployment 5.3%. Housing sales up to pre-crisis levels. Foreclosures to before pre-crisis levels. Wages starting to outpace inflation. Uninsured rate headed for single digits. Manufacturing jobs up by over 400,000 since Obama took office (and those jobs have average wages of $20 to $25 an hour). yeah, who’s the foooking IDIOT now?? Spoiler alert – in the mirror.
So it’s Obama’s fault you don’t have a job?
Gonna work less hours to sell more Chinese stuff. Yeah!!!!
Maybe Obama should lower the corporate tax rate, so companies will quit running from his punishment for hiring Americans.
Then maybe the true rate of employment will ACTUALLY rise, not just lie about jobs, as Obama does to his fools.
Obama never touched the corporate tax rate, you convinced him that Bush was such a God that he left it alone at the Bush level.
The vacuous state of some people’s economic intelligence is balanced out with their belief that people like “Robin Hood” and Bernie Sanders should be in control of our economy.
Supply & demand at work, people fail to see it applies more to than just products/services….it applies to labor and SHOULD apply to interest rates as well. (and eventually one day, it will…even if for a brief time before more government intervention)
The reason why high school kids should be required to take basic Econ.
Amen…
They were when I went to a public H.S. in the last ’70’s, early ’80’s.
yup
Righto! There are many reasons not to be surprised by Walmart’s actions, not least that virtually no free market situation is materially improved by the intervention of the federal government. If this were not so, we could simply raise the minimum wage to $20/hour. Boom…”living wage” problem solved, right?
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So, Walmart is asking employees to leave earlier, or take longer lunch breaks. Assuming that the number of customers hasn’t declined, that means that those employees who remain on the job will be required to work harder and do more.
Does the labor term “stretch-out” sound familiar? This is one reason you have unions, which Walmart has fought so hard against for so long.
Get your History books out and remember the reason labor unions were formed in the first place. Low wages were not the reason. It was safe working conditions – People routinely loss limbs and even there lives! That doesn’t happen to Wal-Mart workers these days.
The free market WILL prevail. Look what happened to the auto industry
“According to Forbes, as of May 2013 the international retailer had $469 billion in sales and 2.2 million employees, including 1.3 million in the United States. The corporation has been criticized for low wages; and in December 2012, PolitiFact National rated as Mostly True a claim that more Walmart employees are on Medicaid and food stamps than other companies.”
Yet, you can’t spend a billion on your workers? …and we’re paying for their employees food stamps and shit? Gotta love America!
And all them coostemers – they’ze all Trump’ed up and crap – loving the Trumpman – buying the Walmart rib-eyes, complainin’ ’bout all the Mexikans in the line.
Typical liberal elite Democrat voter.
You bash people because they are struggling, all the while using them to put your god in office, where he can rob us blind, and live like a king. Even though he’s never had a real job.
You are one lowdown bastard….
I’m a Walton, and we live like kings…we are kings!
King of the Mountain?
Yep! Old Sam got that club opened!
Struggling? At 5.3% unemployment? Hey, where in the constitution does it say inbred under-educated white trailer park trash get to make $50,000 a year? It doesn’t. Don’t like your lot, get a skill and good job. Why do I have to do everything for you?
Walmart hires millions – provides paychecks…
Obama loses millions of jobs…wastes $9 Trillion in our money….
Democrats LOVE Obama, the Tax Collector, and Hate the Job-Providers….
That’s the America of 2015.
Show me that nine trillion, Hoss. Again, have a link?
2009 to 2015, Bush was not in office…
I think he’s asking about that 9 trillion Obama wasted. I would be curious to that link as well.
Huge amounts of deficit spending was done under Bush and handed off to Obama. Two peas in a pod but you sure like to pretend not.
Nothing is EVER Obama’s fault…
But he takes credit for EVERYTHING!!!…(even when it’s fiction).
Funny how you Dumbasses think no one sees through you…Ignorant indeed.
Oh NO, that’s not true. He should have rammed down a return to the Clinton tax rates in 2010 before the mid-terms. That alone would have helped reduce the deficits by 2/3s. That is truly his fault.
$9 an hour is hardly a concession and by cutting hours they will just enrage their employees more. Have fun fighting off unionization.
They’ve been doing a pretty good job so far…
It’s all about the health insurance. Less than 30 hours, no insurance required
Thanks Obama.
You’re welcome. Uninsured rates have fallen from 16.8% when I took office to 9.8% today. Your words of support are priceless.
Curious, let me see, how many hours on average does a Wal-Marter work. OK, back. Looked it up. Average Wal-Mart employee works 34 hours a week. So much for that theory. In fact, it was widely reported in reputable media that only 2% of Wal Mart staff are part time and did not receive healthcare benefits.
I may be mistaken, but I believe the insurance is just the opportunity to “buy in” to the company insurance. Wal-Mart doesn’t actually “provide” anything.
Then again, it’s all second hand, because my family will not SET FOOT in a Wal-Mart or Sams Club!!!!!!!!!!
This is why I boycott Wal*Mart. I don’t like subsidizing their corporate profits through safety net programs for people willing to get out of bed every day and show up for a full time job. You know, their full-time employees.
Having to work less time to make the same amount of money is not the worst thing in the world…
Damn straight! They can work 2 part time jobs, quit the lesser one and start investing the income. But, logic is non-existent
Wall Mart = Race to the bottom
Just a note to all those ardent supporters of oligarchs in Bentonville, they have for years used our tax dollars to cover the health care costs of their employees by keeping them poor enough to qualify for medicaid while pocketing all that extra dough for themselves. Vulture capitalism…
I love how average people ‘demand’ high(er) wages just for remedial work.
What this article failed to mention is that Wal-Marts (including the little ‘Neighborhood’ ones) are replacing cashiers with self-checkouts. That is the consequence of both: a minimum wage hike, and convenient technology all rolled into one.