How Could Companies Like Wal-Mart EVER Pay What People Call A "Living Wage"?

Maybe those saying Walmart can pay their workers more can start up their own chain of stores to put their theory into practice - show America how it can be done.

Somebody did do that. They called the store Costco.

No we will not say that you were right to support discrimination on the grounds of gender orientation, and especially not when your "rightness" comes from Nova having a life threatening accident at work, you asshole.

Can 200 million Americans afford to shop at Costco?

Why not?

You need a membership to shop at Costco.

Costco = Sam's.
Costco ≠ Walmart.

Doesn't Costco only sell 55 gallon drums of margarine and so forth? If I buy in bulk but don't eat it fast enough I don't come out ahead.
BTW what's the deal with Sam's Club? Are they a bulk store too?

Assuming they could all afford the membership, there aren't enough Costcos to accommodate that many people.

I live in a metro area of nearly 2.2 million people.


There are three Costcos.



Walmart, OTOH, probably has 30+ stores in the same area.

If they could afford to wouldn't they already if Costco is the great and wonderful alternative that people here seem to suggest?

Q.v. Post #818.

An interesting strategy might be to waive the membership fee for a certain amount of time or number of purchases. Open a few more stores in WalMart markets, slash their prices to make them, say, a penny lower than WalMart's and undercut the bastids. See how much "brand loyalty" holds up then.

There isn't a Walmart for miles around here, but we have Smart & Final. They style themselves "the smaller, smarter warehouse store," and there's no membership fee. The big-box model is very much like WalMart's. Granted, you can't buy major appliances there, but that's what Home Depot's for.

When the Costco near my house first opened, they mailed out free membership coupons to every home in the area.

Okay, what happened to the damned quote tags that time!!! Now it won't let me edit them!!!1

You seem to have missed the point of the comparison, which is that it's possible to make money selling groceries and other dry goods without paying minimum wage while still providing value to the customer.

Yeah, but there's something you forgot.

Sales model
Costco focuses on selling products at low prices, often at very high volume. These goods are usually bulk-packaged and marketed primarily to large families and businesses. Furthermore, Costco does not carry multiple brands or varieties where the item is essentially the same except when it has a house brand to sell, typically under the Kirkland Signature label. This results in a high volume of sales from a single vendor, allowing further reductions in price, and reducing marketing costs. If Costco management feels the wholesale price of a product is too high, they will refuse to stock the product. For example, on November 16, 2009, Costco announced that it would stop selling Coca-Cola products because the soft-drink maker refused to lower its wholesale prices.[21] Costco resumed selling Coca-Cola products on December 14, 2009.[22][23] Costco also saves money by not stocking extra bags or packing materials; to carry out their goods, customers must bring their own bags or use the merchandise shipping boxes from the company's outside vendors.

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Food stamps in the U.S.[edit]
Until 2009, Costco did not accept food stamps. As of March 14, 2009, an article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette quoted Jim Sinegal, co-founder and president of the company, as saying, "Generally we don't have customers who use food stamps."[36]

In response to the poor economy, as well as competitor BJ's Wholesale Club's decision in April to accept electronic food-stamp benefits chainwide,[37] Costco announced in May 2009 that it will accept food stamps on a trial basis in two New York City stores starting in June 2009 and depending on its success, might expand it to all New York City stores.[38] The company subsequently announced plans to expand the program beyond New York City, targeting first the "hard-hit areas like Michigan, Indiana, and the central valley of California", expanding to "half its roughly 410 U.S. stores by Thanksgiving", and then going nationwide.[39]


from the Costco wikipedia entry.

As you can see, Costco also cuts costs by shifting some burdens to its customers as well such as the customers having to provide their own bags.

Also, Costco clearly does not market to low income or or low volume customers.

Do you really think 100 million people can automatically become Costco shoppers tomorrow if there were enough stores available?

Considering most of the items are big, bulk items, regular shopping bags wouldn't really work all that well.

As for the food stamps part, the way I interpreted that was that accepting them was just more trouble than they were worth for all three of their customers that used them. Now that the economy is changing, they're adapting to that to stay in business...which is a good thing.

...while simultaneously paying a living wage. Now you're getting it.

What does Costco pay its average hourly employee?

The company's starting pay is $11.50 per hour, and the average employee wage is $21 per hour.

http://bit.ly/1julf5m

This is all stupid anyway, given that Dayton started this thread by establishing himself that Walmart could pay a living wage and still make a profit.

He then looked at the fact that they are a big public company which means they are legally obligated to make as much as they can and someone decided that means it is impossible for them to do so if those same laws were used for the good of employees.

Regardless of whether you support a high minimum wage, or letting workers suffer in Dickensian squalor, his entire premise for the thread is flawed.

Hate the game, not the player. If Wal*Mart had done things my way, Nova would have been better off. I guess they were getting welfare anyway, and got less of it because of the job. Now Nova has a spinal injury and Wal*Mart has a liability to care for her--possibly for life, in exchange for getting a couple months of minimum wage work.

"Your way" being discrimination?

Fuck you. There's been plenty of examples here about Walmart and other retailers telling employees to disregard basic safety for the all mighty dollar.

I really liked what you wrote about Wal-Mart. I am for free enterprise and the American potential but as you said 12:50 an hour is just plain unreasonable. I school kiddies here in Australia make 18.50 an hour. I go into some of the MacDonalds and suck up to management and then I have a labour grade chart I Got from the Australia labour board. The head of Finance for AU is Joe Hockey. My wife and I struggled and struggled to put our children in school. And for what? Well the oldest age 34 has nothing to do with there degree. So they started Crossfit out west. It took 7 years and hard work. But they pay there people twice the minimum wage. I mean it is sick. Over here like Walmart does they ( Rivers ) pay there sales reps 22:50. A pair of track shoes cost 120,00 dollars. Made in Bangladesh, a floor worker makes 38 dollars a month. Ball park that. It is 1:02 am here on an IPhone. But let's round it off to 1:10 a working day at 12 hours. I saw a BBC special on this type of shit and the poor young girl did not have enough money to buy Sanitary stuff not counting roll on deodorant. She just sat there and cried. I am behind a fair and reasonable return on monies and capital investment but this urge to price gouge and the display of super greed is unbelievable. Paul wrote, For the LOVE of money is the root of all evil. All evil. Politics, Power, Greed, Sex and all of that is money. When is enough money enough? When Bill Gates? And Tens of Thousands will die in these Genocide attacks on Children who can not help themselves for the Government run Lord,s resistance Army. And this whole rant stems back to America Walmart. Do you think Sam Walton would approve of this? Read his life story. The common fair Dinkum American is Fucked and big Government who is controlling your life in America wants you to think that this so called minimum wage thing is like Union shit. I am very angry. Ted Cruz, Ron Paul, Rand Paul etc. They are the ones stuck in this money mess because you got Amnesty workers just waiting for something so some Arsehole politicians can get reelected again. There is no easy answer. Wal-Mart ought to know better. What happened to morals, brotherly love etc. ? And what did I just read? 14.? Billion for the year? Give me the AK 47 Sam Childers. I will mean you in Sudan where my life will count. The Doc.

I don't think all Americans can afford to shop at Costco. But I think a lot more can than are. I know many families that make enough money to pay the membership fee at Costco shop who shop at Walmart instead because they're fucking stupid and choose to ignore how Walmart treats their employees because they can get those bananas for $.20 cheaper than anywhere else.

That Costco business started in Sidney NSW Australia. They had a big special on it at the 7:00 pm news here last night. We do not have Walmart here in AU. So the Ch. 7 people were comparing all kinds of stuff. Yes, and it was all over 20 cent stuff like you said. My wife followed it very closely, but do to all of my Walmart Costco experience back home, I just looked her watching TV and shook my head about Corporate free interprize from the United States of America. In the big picture and scope of things I should not complain. I or we should be grateful to God we even have food to eat. Doc.

*porn images deleted by Paladin*

Ah, good ol' lesbo shoes!

Anyway, an argument for why conservatives should embrace an increase to the minimum wage.

Paragraphs.

Please.