As someone who is self employed I see why Walmart does what it does. High turn-over is due in large part that no one wants to work anymore. I have been a manager a Lowe's and seen this fist-hand. Everyone believes they should be running things and making more money than they are. The real truth is that pushing a broom and standing at a cash register is not worth a high wage.(yes these jobs need to be done) Job markets dictate wages and if someone doesn't want to work for $8 an hour, someone else does. If mopping is worth $15 per hour then managing by most people's reasoning is worth $30. I know that the wages seem unfair to the bottom man but the guy who has put in ten or more years, working his way up plus getting college or special training, is worth more to the company. Some of you argue about raising the lowest wages but is it fair to give a $3 raise to a $8per hour employee and not to the guy already at $11? If everyone receives the raise nationally, bankruptcy would be in the near future.
Wal-Mart is spending 16 billion dollars of free cash on stock buybacks after all operating expenses.
That fact negates your argument that giving their employees 15 dollars a hour as a base salary and providing a comprehensive benefits package would bankrupt Wal-Mart.
I see no reason why tax-payers should have to subsidize Wal-Marts financial model of hiring low cost mostly part-time employees and then giving them instructions in the employee handbook on how to apply for taxpayer funded welfare benefits in every state that they operate in in-order to transfer the cost of those employees to tax-payers.
Just so that Wal-Mart can utilize its free cash to buy back 16 billion dollars worth of stock in-order to benefit financially the owners of Wal-Mart and Wal-Mart executives that own huge amounts of Wal-Mart stock shares.
This will illustrate in part who is benefiting the most from these stock-buybacks.
It does not include the members of the Walton family that own over 50% of the company.
These "insiders" aka. Wal-Mart executives/managers whose stock transactions are listed benefit from buy-backs as their shares are more valuable based on the share price when they execute a stock options distribution and stock prices are 'propped' up by buybacks.
WMT Insider Transactions | Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Common St Stock - Yahoo! Finance
How the Walton family benefits from stock-buybacks is indicated here:
WMT Major Holders | Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Common St Stock - Yahoo! Finance
Keep in mind that these share distributions are taxed at a capital gains rate of 15%
That makes the income tax hit on the 'incomes' of these billionaires lower than someone in the middle class that pays a 26% income tax rate.
The people that own Wal-Mart shares in say a 401k mutual find may benefit from increases in the stock price.
However when they take retirement distributions their tax rate is at an ordinary income tax rate.
It is easy to see exactly who is benefiting from stock buybacks and who is not.
The employees of Wal-Mart on taxpayer welfare sure as hell do not benefit.
Here is an article as to another way that these Walton family billionaires benefit from taxpayer transference of wealth via the way the tax code is structured.
In this case instead of taxpayer supplied welfare to their employees, it's how they utilize the rigged tax code that benefits the 1% to their advantage.
How Wal-Mart
