The Effect Of Wal-Mart On America's Economy

The condition of the working class in the US at the beginning of the 20th century was extremely challenging since workers had to struggle for survival on the daily bases that can be clearly seen from The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. However, in the course of time, the situation did not change in principle because the US did not conduct systematic socioeconomic reforms that would eliminate conditions for the exploitation of a large group of people by a few for the benefit of the few, while the large part of the population remains at the risk of economic disaster. At this point, the recent economic recession is the best evidence of the lack of such reforms. This is why just like a hundred years ago, the US still faces the problem of the social injustice with the severe exploitation of employees, whose only source of income is scarce wages, while a few families concentrate in their hands the lion share of the national wealth and have a considerable and determinant impact not only on the US economy but also politics.

In William Warren’s political cartoon, “Minimum Wage Spike,” published in 2014 by Net Right Daily, powerfully depicts Warren’s viewpoint of President Obama’s attempts to raise minimum wage from the average eight dollars to a higher ten to fifteen dollars per hour. Although the cartoon is two years old, the context of this cartoon is still debated and relevant because it demonstrates the effects of raising minimum wage and the effects it will have on employees. The cartoon contains an arrow that represents the hike in minimum wage, or as Warren refers to it as a “spike,” that is impaling through a man with a label that reads “500k Jobs.” William Warren effectively discredits Obama’s proposal through the use of symbolism and analogy that attempts

In the New Yorker magazine on August 12, 2013, James Surovwiecki’s article “The Pay is Too Damn Low” was published. He lays out a good argument on the benefits of raising the minimum wage, but fails to address the complicated connection between low-cost goods and services that Americans have come to demand and the low minimum wage.

Chapters 3 and 4 of Richard Sennett’s, The Culture of the New Capitalism, discusses certain aspects of social capitalism. He calls this society “two-tiered” where there is a class divide between people who profit from this new economy and those in the middle who do not. These strains in turn produce ressentiment, which is “a cluster of emotions, principally the belief that ordinary people who have played by the rules have not been dealt with fairly” (Sennett 132). He then discusses consumption and uses the company Wal-Mart for his example. He claims that businesses such as Wal-Mart, who provide a plethora of cheap goods that span from electronics to food, take away from the “face-to-face mediation and persuasion” of the consumption process

those who are responsible for the poverty many Americans live. The government must determine how much to increase the minimum wage; if they decide to increase it at all. Leading the struggle for increased minimum wages are the fast food workers of America, each with their own personal stories of struggle and reasons they must depend on a food service job, paying these meager wages, to provide for their family. As David Neumark states, “Since its enactment, there has been widespread debate about the merits of minimum wage laws, along with numerous efforts to evaluate their economic effects” (55). I seek to show the value of a significant minimum wage increase and the effects it will have, not only on fast food worker’s lives, but the good it could have on the US economy. Although there are those out there that would argue that the minimum wage increase would cause more damage to our economy; I believe

“Is Wal-Mart Good For America?” affords viewers a thoughtful analysis into the dubious ethical methodologies employed by the Wal-Mart Corporation.

Americans below the poverty line are demanding for increased pay in their minimum wage jobs. Although with the increase to fifteen dollars an hour, many Americans would be left jobless pushing them farther under the poverty line increasing the wage by over half would harm the country’s economy more than improve it. Minimum wage workers want higher wages for the work they provide, but inflation, unemployment, and businesses closing will only cause more issues for Americans.

Surowiecki would say to Saltsman that raising the minimum wage is just part of the solution. He would further say that the workers in low-wage jobs today are different from the workers in those jobs from the past. For a solution, we need to change the fundamental way employers like Walmart and McDonald’s do business. He would also say that in addition to raising minimum wage we need to have all kinds of social programs to prop-up the low-wage workers. We need a “strong economy and a tight job market” (34).

Raising the minimum wage is not only beneficial to those who are struggling financially, America’s economy would benefit from this as well. Doug Hall and David Cooper express how increasing the minimum wage would be a tool for modest job creation in the article “Raising the Minimum Wage Would Help Lower-Income Workers”. In the article “Is a $15 minimum wage economically feasible?” Jeannette Wick-Lims discusses how raising the minimum wage is good for the economy if we adapt to the changes accordingly. Elise Gould argues about how there is a strong statistical link between economic growth and falling poverty rates in her article “Increasing the

The U.S was once the most feared and powerful nation on the face of this earth, but now that can not be stated as a fact. The country lead in research, jobs, prosperity, and wealth. There was a free market, and people had the ambition to be better than average. They were willing to work extremely hard until they did so. Now however, people expect the government to take care of them. People are satisfied working at a “minimum wage” that has no actual purpose. Nobody can actually live off of this wage, and anyone who earns minimum wage needs government assistance anyways. This creates “Working Poor: A term used to describe workers who are employed but still unable to afford the cost of living” (Aliprandini). The Federal Government continues to go into debt, and the working poor are the root of the country's problem. People do not realize that minimum wage was not created for able bodied adults. If one does not have a skill to make more than minimum wage, they should focus on acquiring one. This country needs to focus on recreating a supply and demand economy, which it prospered off of at one point. Once people start earning the wage they deserve, the employers would adjust the prices of all goods accordingly and remove the pointless inflation caused by minimum wage. This would drastically reduce the living wage, improve the economy, and start giving people the motivation to make our country great

Low-wage jobs can lead to the direct formation or desire to form labor unions. Norma Rae and Nickel and Dimed are examples of this development. The inflicted struggles of both main characters due to their occupations aided the desire to be apart of labor unions. Labor unions are formed to protect and further workers rights and interests. Low-wage jobs have the tendency to inhabit poor working conditions and workers rights. The desire to gain fair working conditions and better rights fuels workers to be apart or create labor unions.

Walmart will be increased exposure of raising wages and high health insurance costs for all employees because the state government has increased the hourly minimum wage rate to $10.10 in 2017 and recently a number of U.S. cities have approved to increase minimum wage to $15 by 2020 (Emily & David, 2015). Even though, the corporation has announced its plan to raise the minimum wage to $10 an hour in 2016, they still have to face protests from labor union of demanding to raise its wages immediately (Connor, 2015). Eventually, it will pose great dangers to Walmart as they have to incur additional costs to raise its employees’ wages in order to retain their best talent employees who manage to assist the corporation to deliver a great shopping experience

The productivity growth of the United States since the late seventies has not influenced the majority of workers (Howell). Minimum wage in America has collapsed from the year nineteen-sixtyeight to nineteen-eighty-nine by a dollar fifty six. We have recently had the longest period in time without a raise in the minimum wage between the years of 1997 to 2007(“The”). The higher wages the minimum wage can provide can increase consumer purchasing, raising productivity, improving product quality, and improving company reputation. All of these reasons contribute to the improvement of the economy. “The economy is in its worst crisis than it has been since the great depression” (“The”). Minimum wage has not been what it was made to be in the past years according to many sources ,and the effect that it is having on our modern economy is acceptable. If the minimum wage was to increase more than eight percent of louisiana's workers would be affected in a positive way. The numbers are the same in many other states as well. The numbers state that increasing the minimum wage will allow America to pull out of the recession that we are held within. The committees of New York and California concluded that a fifteen dollar minimum wage is estimated to increase the income of minimum wage workers by one third percent in each state. Many large business owners say that this will greatly impact the productivity and growth of their companie in a positive way. They say that there will be more income coming in along with quality consumer products going out at a much faster rate than ever before. The scattered opinions on minimum wage are far and near ,but they can not argue with the future and prospering of the average worker along with the

Conservative economists view the minimum wage argument as a series of points on a chart. If labour costs go by x, profits will decrease by y. The reason this point fails is that workers are not robots who react the same to inputs and outputs. They are humans with feelings and emotions are reacting to changes in their environment differently. That is the heart of the liberal perspective on increasing the minimum wage and paying employees more will not just help workers but business owners and the population at large. This is so for several reasons. First, paying workers a higher salary is going to increase the productivity of the workers. This increased productivity and improved customer service will generate more in revenue than the increase in wages. Secondly, the reduction

In Walmart modernized stockrooms, numerous merchandise arrives and leaves without ever sitting on a shelf by any means. Just 10% of the floor space in Walmart stores is utilized as a stock territory, contrasted with the 25% normal for the business. Adjacent to PCs and broadcast communications gear, the specialized premise of the purpose of-offer framework is the standardized tag scanner. Standardized tag scanners make it conceivable to record the offer of individual things and make that data accessible promptly for the two deals examination and reordering. The principal utilization of standardized identification scanners happened in the 1970s when the acknowledgment that overloads was ending up increasingly an issue. Today, exact stock following