General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forumsjimfields33
(16,149 posts)They are the ones really hurt by this. Hopefully many other affordable stores in area. Yes they should pay a decent wage. Now they will pay nothing or get anything.
leftieNanner
(15,207 posts)and the Dollar General turns out to be unprofitable, they will close the DG.
Happens will Walmart all the time.
jimfields33
(16,149 posts)Amazon on line, BJs wholesaler and Walmart. Oh what fun that will do. /sarc.
leftieNanner
(15,207 posts)But we are fortunate to have some good local grocery stores (added bonus: they sell local fresh produce) and at my stage in life, I don't need any more "stuff".
jimfields33
(16,149 posts)Im sure it wont get as bad a just those 3 biggies. They will always have small retailers....I hope.
leftieNanner
(15,207 posts)Not all communities are equally lucky.
The US economy is fragile, and we need the local stores much more than the behemoths.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)person on one or the other revolutions, there'd be no competition. If we don't save our democracy, our future is an extreme authoritarian government that will protect itself by destroying opposition. That's us.
As it is, I'll go with the proven solution: a big no to both, and just put a damned leash (as the "father of capitalism" himself insisted in his Wealth of Nations published in 1776!!!) on the capitalist engine of prosperity. Adjust policies significantly to meet current needs and realities, including climate change.
A no-brainer. It's doable, we've done it before, INCLUDING ESTABLISHING THE LIVING WAGES THAT CREATED A LARGE, SMUGLY PROSPEROUS MIDDLE CLASS AND SHRANK POVERTY. It worked well with great future promise while we kept it up. (What the hell was wrong with all those who didn't vote to protect it?)
Whatever, we also know a lot more now and can even do it much better.
c-rational
(2,602 posts)70sEraVet
(3,548 posts)I'm not defending their pay practices; I'm just saying that for many rural communities, the 'alternative' is to drive to the nearest town that's large enough to host a grocery store.
You really can't expect Dollar General to raise wages, when Wal-Mart won't. We NEED a livable minimum wage across the board.
liberal N proud
(60,352 posts)But they dont want to pay them.
I keep having this argument with my wife and her situation. She is a manager for a large retail chain and while as liberal as most of us, doesnt believe people are worth $15/hr.
I cant win this argument, but current situations might be swaying her.
DFW
(54,516 posts)I don't know her company or how many employees are affected. If she is managing 5000 employees, then each dollar of wages at 40 hours a week means $200,000 a week (plus employer contributions) difference. If the employees are making $10 an hour now, then raising that to $15 means she is looking at $1 million, plus employer contributions, per week in increased costs. If her stores are doing well, they can absorb it. If not, then it could sink her and make things difficult with the store's bankers and credit line if wages were suddenly increased by 50%.
I wouldn't want to have to try to live on $400 a week anywhere in the USA. Hell, I wouldn't want to try to live on $600 a week in the USA. Nor would I want to be in a position to ruin my employer, and thus my own job, by raising costs beyond what the business needs to make to survive. By waiting so long to increase the minimum wage, we have boxed some of our employers into a corner. Those that have done well, will not have a problem increasing their minimum wage. Those whose margin of existence depends on the low minimum wage will have to come up with some creative contingency planning if the increase becomes law everywhere, and there will be some pain in adjusting.
Claire Oh Nette
(2,636 posts)No increase in MW since 2009. it should be $18-22.
Bummer the employers harvested all that profit from NOT RAISING WAGES and have to give some back.
Not one person was acceptable at $11.50, or $13??
Lies.
BobTheSubgenius
(11,580 posts)She isn't stuck on a number, but more to the concept that raising wages will cause prices to rise along with them. I try to counter with a two-pronged approach. One, prices rise anyway, with no upward pressure from wage hikes, and you can't penalize people that are already in a financial difficulty. Two, at the very worst, a jump in wages will catch people up a certain amount, for at least a while.
It would be kind of like trying to keep yourself from drowning - surfacing for a deep breath and trying to stay afloat for a while. Then hold your breath while you slip under the surface again, hoping you can resurface for another breath before the worst happens.
It's precarious, no matter what.
Hekate
(91,047 posts)Last edited Sat May 8, 2021, 09:00 PM - Edit history (1)
(Darn, the screen jumped and I hit the post button. Will try to finish shortly. // update: Done)
Recommend the whole thing. He references Dollar General, where people are sometimes required to work off the clock in wretched conditions.
Southern governors in particular think the federal assistance is a dangerous entitlement and are stopping people from getting it. They seriously believe workers should be driven back to work by starvation for 1/2 of what it takes to live because, reasons. Maybe they should be under the lash, like the olden days? Maybe their little children should sleep under the looms at the textile mills? Whistle while they work?
He uses words like demeaning and insulting and threatening for the ways that employers and politicians talk about workers.
On a salient note, he writes of a woman who was unable to find enough workers for her ice cream parlor to be open 7 days a week all summer, until she advertised wages of $15/hour, at which point she had thousands of applications.
http://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=355b50d8-8825-4aa5-87cc-be0ebc92e5cc
Cant find workers? Dont blame federal aid
snip
The notion that unemployment benefits are keeping able-bodied workers home has become an article of faith among employers and their lobbyists, despite a lack of any evidence that this phenomenon is endemic.
In some places, the business community hasnt been shy about demeaning workers who arent clamoring to join their staffs. Typically they portray the workforce as an army of layabouts.
Heres the insulting way that John Kabateck, California state director for the small business lobby group the National Federation of Independent Business, put it: The federal governments extra $300 it added to state unemployment benefits comes to an end in early September, so it will be a matter of time before showing up for work is a better-paying proposition than remaining on the couch watching reruns of Gilligans Island.
NFIB, by the way, has sued to overturn California regulations requiring employers to maintain safe workplaces during the pandemic. That hints at one reason why people might feel uncomfortable about taking jobs with its member companies. The lawsuit is pending in state court in San Francisco.
snip
The question is not whether employers are scratching for staff, but why.
Employers simply dont want to raise wages high enough to attract workers, observes Heidi Shierholz, a former chief economist for the Department of Labor who is now policy director at the labor-affiliated Economic Policy Institute. I often suggest that whenever anyone says, I cant find the workers I need, she should really add, at the wages I want to pay.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell referred to the wage question during a news conference on April 28. We dont see wages moving up yet, he said. And presumably we would see that in a really tight labor market.
Powell listed numerous other factors that might produce a temporary labor shortage in some sectors.
One big factor would be schools arent open yet, so theres still people who are at home taking care of their children, and would like to be back in the workforce, but cant be yet, he said. There are virus fears that are weighing on people, so some people dont want to go back to work.
snip
For some employers, the intuitive conclusion that workers are just waiting out their unemployment benefit trumps its empirical falsity. For others, too, its far easier, and even cheaper, to complain about lazy workers than to entice them into work with a living wage.
As has been the case in other economic recoveries, the pace of rehiring is almost entirely in employers hands. Their tools are workplace conditions and wages. They just have to use them.
Dark n Stormy Knight
(9,776 posts)plastic crap into US landfills via the consumers who buy all that junk, partly because they can't afford products worth caring for.