The Wal-Mart Problem
 

Well, this is interesting: Maryland has passed a law that requires large companies to spend 8% of its payroll to cover the insurance cost for their employees.

...and yet...

I find the legislation amusing, since I'm currently bracing myself for the trend of the next five years: large companies completely discontinuing insurance coverage. What will happen when people that get paid a decent living wage are forced to pay out of pocket for their families?

"The savings will be passed on to the consumer!" Yay!

Is there a large company that has completely discontinued insurance coverage?

Not yet, but the rumors are circulating, especially for "management" employees that are paid a high enough salary that they should be able to cover it on their own. The change is due, in part, because of bloated pensions and the inability of companies to cover the wave of retirements over the next fifteen years.

The argument goes that "management" ("anyone salary", where I come from) should be able to cover themselves and that due to variations in family and coverage needs that the company has no incentive to provide blanket coverage. Hourly employees that work full time would have to be covered by law, however.

What is it with big multi national companies 8% of their profits I'll bet Wal-mart and companies would never miss 8% of their proft ,that works out at $80,000 per million a drop in the bucket to Wal-Mart.
When is enough profit enough?What ever happened to social responsibility to their employees..

Not 8% of profit, 8% of payroll. :cool:

Oh, in that case 8% of a few lousey dimes. Chinamart should be able to pick up the spare change to cover that by sending someone out to the parking lot once a day to scarf up dropped pennies.

I find it ironic that Chinamart damn near exclusively sells items manufactured in a communist economy, imports them under the banner of free trade, and squalls like a mashed cat at having to provide its own employees anything approaching a living wage, or god forbid, health insurance, as well.

By the way, there is no Federal law requiring that hourly employees be provided with health insurance. Or if there is, its got more holes in it than a Swiss cheese. Hourly employees here in Colorado commonly go without company health insurance and not because they want to, it just isn't offered.

As for the big companies whining about upcoming retirement costs, they get no sympathy from me. Shudda planned. Isn't that what they teach you at MBA school?

At first, I didn't like the idea. But, now that I think about it, I like the idea of penalizing companies with top-heavy salaries. Its sort of wealth redistribution within a company which, given runaway top mgt salaries, is not necessarily bad.

Of course, they shouldn't say payroll but rather compensation. Payroll is a defined term. Compensation catches all monies paid to employees whether its payroll or stock ownership.

That's not irony, that's called consistency.

I think the thing that pisses me off is how they chain-gang the workers into accepting such horrible jobs in the first place! I mean, it would be one thing if Walmart clearly indicated up front how much money, and what sort of additional benefits they would be giving people in echange for their work, and then gave people the option of whether or not they wanted to accept those terms ...

And also, it infuriates me how they move into a new area, and then force all of the consumers in the area to only shop at their stores. I mean, the way they send out bands of roving senior citizens to burn down opposing retailers and distributed small-pox blankets to the owners is unconscionable! If only there were some way to withhold our patronage on an individual basis, maybe the monster would starve and waste away.

Alas, it appears we must be held if death's grim sway.

China's markets are freer than Maryland's. The Communists realized twenty years ago that their closed markets left the country unproductive and that the better strategy would be to open the markets while keeping a reign on people and power. Their resulting, remarkable boom is one reason all the stuff is made there... and also why oil is $66/bl.

LOL, good to see that you haven't lost your touch, Smoothmoniker! Still driving around in your stretch limo hummer?

I've been meaning to complain to the authorities about the little old lady who whopped me upside of the head with her cane and dragged me into Wally World and forced me to buy a bunch of brightly colored beads and a small pocket mirror in exchange for the island of Manhatten. Alas, I've been too sick with small pox to make it into the police station. :p

I'm sensing a pattern here.

Yeah?

Me too!

Six small pox blankets for you! :eyebrow:

All anyone knows is what we write in our posts.

:eyebrow:

It helps to read them, too.


Since I’m putting off an unpleasant chore, and since I’m feeling rather sullen at the moment, I’m going to give an answer to your comments that you don’t especially deserve. The following is largely from the CIA World Fact book. That’s CIA as in Central Intelligence Agency – not exactly a hotbed of bleeding liberal propaganda. The last I knew, the CIA does not check on my economic status before writing up its reports, either.

According to the CIA, China is (gasp!) run under a communist system of government.

The restructuring of its economy and resulting efficiency gains have contributed to a more than ten-fold increase in GDP since 1978. Measured on a purchasing power parity (PPP) basis, China in 2005 stood as the second-largest economy in the world after the US. The Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party in October 2005 approved the draft 11th Five-Year Plan and the National People's Congress is expected to give final approval in March 2006. The plan calls for a 20 percent reduction in energy consumption per unit of GDP by 2010 and an estimated 45 percent increase in GDP by 2010.

According to a second hotbed of mindless liberalism, The Economist, China develops her economy through exporting, so the Chinese government protects her exporting companies. China subsidizes these companies, lends them low interest loans, and gives them tax refunds. Also, most importantly, Chinese government controls her foreign exchange rate and keeps the rate low. Under these protections, Chinese exporting companies have lots of advantages in competition with foreign companies.

Chinese companies have little concern for interest rates on bank loans since credit is allocated with little regard to its price. Despite China's reforms of recent years, the government still controls more than half of the economy. Most state-owned enterprises do not care about the cost of borrowing because they have no need to make profits


Back to the CIA’s lefty writings:

(US companies) face higher barriers to entry in their rivals' home markets than the barriers to entry of foreign firms in US markets… The onrush of technology largely explains the gradual development of a "two-tier labor market" in which those at the bottom lack the education and the professional/technical skills of those at the top and, more and more, fail to get comparable pay raises, health insurance coverage, and other benefits. Since 1975, practically all the gains in household income have gone to the top 20% of households...Long-term problems include inadequate investment in economic infrastructure, rapidly rising medical and pension costs of an aging population, sizable trade and budget deficits, and stagnation of family income in the lower economic groups.

Some fun comparisons, again from the CIA Fact book:


Foreign reserves and gold: USA, $86.94 billion; China, $795.1 billion
External debt: USA $8.837 trillion; China, $242 billion
Population below poverty line: USA, 12%; China, 10%

So, Comrade Beestie, how many shares of free market Wally World stock did you say you owned? The Central Committee wants to know.

The list continues to grow.

we have a long way to go to catch up the the chinese, but i'm convinced we will be able to not match them, but best them at the american way of business, specifically manufacturing. we should all take note of wal-mart, because while so many of us may not like the way they operate their stores, they do have the right idea. they cut costs, they keep it cheap, they make it affordable. there is no way a foreign company could ever best a powerhouse like they are. if other american companies could follow similar practices, they would be able to sell their products on the shelves alongside chinese companies and outsell them, maybe even ship to them and outdo them at their own game. i am familiar with the fat that manufacturing firms haul around! cut that and we could excel beyond the overseas corporations because of their inability to ship large quantities of products as cheaply as we could truck them on our highways.

this is the free market, people. get used to it. besides, how many of you depend on the low prices of wal-mart? it is a solid part of our country and what keeps so many of the "disadvantaged" living well. (not to mention those of us that love to save a buck!)

You drive 20 miles to buy the flappin junk, then get home and a few days later it don't work, broke. Then drive 20 miles back to return it. Where in the fucks the great savings, with the price of gas.

imprint i think the way you spEll is k00lhttp://www.cellar.org/images/smilies/cool.gif

:noevil: That's nice, Beestie.

And to Imprint:

What planet did you just arrive from? :rtfm:

Busterb, precisely! Its cheap crap, manufactured under a communist system by companies that don't have to be competitive because the government props them up.

One thing it has done is kill Chinese workers at an alarming rate. Pollution is running rampant, lung cancer has become the prime killer and strange diseases are popping up like daisies. :3_eyes:

Alarming to us, part of their 10 year economic plan to reduce surplus population for them.

In the China/WalMart/surplus vein...
 

I ran across this at a site called The Superficial. Emphasis mine.

Meg Ryan, star of such movies as Crap and Crap 2: the Craptathlon, will adopt a Chinese baby later today, according to OK! magazine. The adoption is scheduled to take place at an American consulate in China. An insider tells the publication, "The consulate will formalize the adoption and grant Meg's new daughter a visa and a social security number. They will probably be flying back to the US immediately after the process is complete."

China is like the Wal-Mart of adoptions. You touch down at the airport in Beijing and they just start throwing babies and fortune cookies at you. But good for Meg. Now all she needs to do is name the baby Lo Pan and teach it to shoot fire from its eyes.

Well, if abortion and contraception become illegal in this country, maybe we can get Wal-Mart to offer adoptions.http://www.cellar.org/images/smilies/mad.gif With %10 off discounts in the portrait studio and 1 free bag of diapers with each adoption (limit 2).

I love "Big Trouble in Little China."

Speaking of Wal-Mart...

My Wife and recently re-discovered K-Mart, where you you can buy the same cheep crap you get at Wal-Mart for a few pennies more. As I sit here taking stock of clothing (im doing laundry) we are getting away from the wal-mart stuff my clothing is from Markos and Sons in down town La Crosse, and my Wifes clothing is from various other stores around town. We decided to get away from Wal-Mart. Not beacause of politics and policies, instead we want more quality for our money.

I just came across a study done by a state labor policy group at the University of California. They estimate that Walmart costs California taxpayers in the neighborhood of $86 million/year due to the fact that their wages are so low (54% of workers earn $9.00/hr or less) and the fact that they don't offer health insurance. Cali Walmart employees are more likely to be on foodstamps programs and get their health care via the highly expensive route of ER visits which the tax payer is left holding the bag (and the bill) for.

(I know, Beestie, I know. :rolleyes: )

I've already added Wal-Mart to the ever-growing list of institutions (and people, I'm proud to say) that, according to marichiko, lie and cheat. And, while we are on the subject of the list, as a consequence of your profound insights into our foreign policy as documented in another thread, I've sent a memo to Condi Rice that we need to dust off "Cold War" and "Domino Theory" and put them back into the forefront of our foreign policy doctrine where they belong.

But, getting back to the topic at hand, I have three questions:

1. Are you saying that California would be better of by $86M if Wal-Mart closed its doors tomorrow? The only way I can make sense of that assertion is to assume that everyone who works at Wal-Mart turned down a higher paying job to work there.

2. Did the study include in its calculations the income and capital gains California earns by virtue of its holdings (in various state-owned investment portfolios) of Wal-Mart stock?

3. Did the study offer a scenario whereby Wal-Mart raises prices sufficiently high to allow it to raise payroll expense enough to include health-insurance and wages not regarded as "low" and did such a scenario examine whether or not such an increase in its expenses and revenue would "wash out" or have a net decrease in overall profit sufficiently large enough to cause its business model to fail? Or, did the study just assume that Wal-Mart's profit margins are sufficiently large to absorb the increase in payroll expense without raising prices and without suffering a decrease in revenue (and a secondary hit on profit) as a consequence?

Alternatively, you can link the study and I'll answer my own questions.

It takes longer to fix things than to break them, so I suspect it would take longer than a day to build up the higher paying jobs that Wal-Mart destroyed.

Glad to see you're paying attention. What thread, BTW?

No, I am not making that leap of logic. I merely quoted what the study says tax payers must pay for Walmart workers. The figure is on page 10 here:

http://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/lowwage/walmart.pdf

What ever they are paying, it's less than if those folks were not working at walmart.

$9/hour is significantly better than the "minimum wage jobs" we so often hear about, too. If WalMart is as evil as people say they aren't wouldn't they be paying everybody federal minimum wage?

Whatever. I don't buy Wal-mart because just going into that store depresses the shit out of me. It reeks of, of something, I just can't place it. Poverty? Maybe. White trashiness? Yeah! That's it!

Mabe it's the sight of Third World children raging completely unsupervised through the aisles, shrieking, fighting, crying, opening packages or dropping them on the floor, mauling all the toys and stuffed animals, dripping with mucus and food they are shoving into their faces? That part does it for me, but to up the repulsion factor even more, a recent survey even found SEMEN on the handlebars of a Walmart shopping cart.

I hit Wallyworld grocery shopping the other day thinking I'd compare prices... Prices were lower but ya talk about a depressing atmosphere. :(

You lost me. What jobs did Wal-Mart destroy?

The way I see it, 44,000 Californians have jobs that would otherwise be in the unemployment line and on total public assistance. And speaking of total public assistance, its interesting that California does not seem to have a problem with the children of illegal immigrants attending public schools or with illegal immigrants picking every peice of fruit or vegatable grown in the state.

Where's the study showing how much the benefits paid to illegal immigrants employed by Californian farm co-ops at below minimum wages? Where is the Cellar outrage about that? When the cost of tomatoes rises to $10.00 pound because California mandates that all migrant workers must be paid $15.00/hr and provided with full insurance coverage then I suspect you'll sing a different tune.

And where's the study that shows how the artificially high wages paid to union grocery store workers has inflated food prices to the extent that workers making $9.00/hr have to go on food stamps to feed their families?

I read the study over and while the facts within it appear to be reasonable, I don't understand what the study is intended to prove. It does not look at the cost to California of benefits to the 44,000 Wal-Mart employees in the scenario where Wal-Mart never opened a store in the state who were presumably either unemployed or making even less? It does not look at the benefit to everyone who shops there of the lower cost of the same basket of goods purchased at a union store. Wouldn't surprise me a bit if the unions funded this study.

The minimum wage in CA is 6.75/hr. Wal-Mart pays over $9.00 per hour. And I can't imagine that everyone in CA earning minimum wage has full health insurance coverage.

I guess my reaction to the study is so what? And who's behind it?

Mr Fargon posted the truth. While we buy from Wal-mart, we do not buy everything we consume from there, or do all our business there. We never buy fresh meat products there, as the grocery store chain in town offers better quality and variety for a better price. We also prefer to get our pictures developed at the photography store (for less money!), buy chocolates and nuts at the specialty candy store, and buy fair trade coffee from the cafe. All these stores are located in the downtown area, which needs the economic boost. We do pay more for some items, but the quality is worth it.

You are making a pretty big leap there, Beestie. The report was about Walmart. It does not pretend to address any possible problems or attitudes about other California labor issues. The report doesn't mention anything about Silicon Valley, either. Does this mean that Californians have no interest or opinions about the computer industry?

Oh, I imagine you could generate some comments about migrant workers if you cared to make a post about them. I'm sure UG and others would be happy to oblige. However, again, this was not the topic. And how do you know that we would start singing in a different key when you complain that you can't even hear the song in the first place?

I checked and the study comes from an institute which is a part of the University of California. Tax payers and students fund the California system of higher education, the last I heard. Naturally, some of these tax payers probably belong to unions. Some of them are probably corporate executives.

No, I don't imagine that everyone getting the minimum wage in Cali has health insurance, either. Probably a lot of those minimum wage earners are kids working part time flipping burgers. Probably a lot of those minimum wage earners are a lot of different people doing different things working for all kinds of different companies. However, we are talking about a mega-international company named "Walmart."

Here's the most recent stats on Wal-mart's profits that I could find:

Wal-Mart Reports Record Sales and Earnings for 1st Quarter 2006
Net sales for the first quarter were $70.9 billion, an increase of 9.5 percent over the first quarter of fiscal 2005. Net income for the quarter was $2.5 billion, an increase of 13.6 percent from $2.2 billion in the first quarter of fiscal 2005.

Thats from the Wal-Mart web site. Now, either you buy into the idea of "welfare" or you don't. But if you object to tax payers footing the bill for the health care of a low income, single Mom and her kids, then you should certainly object to tax payers having to foot the bill for an outfit making such an enormous profit by importing goods from a country whose system is anything BUT free market. You can't have one set of rules for one group and a different set for the other without exciting comment from the people involved.

And, BTW, $9.00/hour puts a family of 4 well below the Federal poverty guidelines.

$0/hr puts them even further below it ... at least the $9 folks are trying.

That phrase used to be common and meaningful to the minimum wage argument, but now it's just something you pulled out of your ass. $9/hr works out to $18,000 gross per year and poverty is $18,850. I'm not saying it's a great life, but I'm guessing most Walmart jobs aren't the only wage-earner for a family of four either.

In order to earn poverty level for a single wage earner for a family of four, that person has to make $9.43/hr.

Anybody ever read NICKEL AND DIMED? The system is set up to fuck these people over. Get over the 9$/hr issue already--try living on it.

and people are penalized for 'trying'. you know that.

I can't get too specific about California's economy but common sense tells me a couple things.

Wages in CA are artificially high. Artificial because the grocery store unions have leveraged them up. Higher wages increase prices which, in turn, raises the poverty line. Additionally, California's generous state-provided entitlement programs (education and other benefits for non-citizens who don't pay into the tax system) serve to increase the tax burden disproportionately. A higher tax burden also has the effect of raising the poverty line because those who shoulder the burden must raise prices to cover the increase.

Now, Wal-Mart sees the "gap" between labor costs and price level and enters the market with lower prices and lower labor costs and makes a zillion dollars BECAUSE their lower prices enable shoppers to basically lower their own poverty line by increasing their buying power. A point conspicuously absent from the cited study.

I just think its disingenuous to single out Wal-Mart for paying below-average wages when all they are guilty of is offering a wage and benefit package that is better than 44,000 Californians had before Wal-Mart entered the CA market. And to turn a blind eye to farm co-ops who "employ" thousands of non-citizens and pay no labor tax and pocket the wage differential.

And without necessarily assuming it, I think its a safe bet to say that Wal-Mart's contribution to the GDP of California far outweighs the phantom cost the study attributes to Wal-Mart. The study was not an economic study and only looked at one element in the equation.

Therefore, while interesting, the study is basically conclusionless.

I buy some things at Wal-Mart because it's cheap and convenient. The cheapness goes away when they have to pay someone $15/hr to push shopping carts from the parking lot to the store (a skillset that is sorely lacking at our local store, btw).

Our desire for having it all, right now, at the cheapest price we can get it doesn't mesh well with our tiny little consciences telling us that low-paying jobs aren't "fair". And our desire for stuff wins every time. "Wal-Mart shelf stocker" isn't really supposed to be the sort of job that feeds a family of four.

It seems to me that there's a different sense of work ethic these days. My dad (told by his mom -- really -- that he was borderline retarded and that all of his brothers were smarter than him) went into the Navy and got the GI Bill. He worked 2 FULL TIME jobs (that's 80 hours) while taking a full courseload at college. Mom taught elementary school as soon as my older sister was old enough to go, so Dad could drop one of the jobs. He picked industrial technology as his degree and got a doctorate (he actually wanted to be a forest ranger, but he put his family's needs first). This was about the time I entered the picture. I remember eating beanie-weenies 3 days out of the week when I was a child until dad was finally able to get a consulting job along with the professor gig at CSU. We lived pretty large then, taking trips and such, and rarely duplicating a meal in the same week. I remember many nights when he and my mom (who helped him with secretarial stuff and test grading) didn't get to bed until 2 a.m.

He retired a couple years ago after 25-30 years at the university, after having put 3 kids through college, paid off his house and cars, and not a single meal missed by any of us. Not a millionaire by any stretch, he makes just enough from investments and retirement to take a trip or two to see family every year. I have lived with them for the last several years, and my rent money sends them on a fall foliage tour or cruise of some kind every year or two. I'll still send them the rent when I get a house next year (after I've cleared up my financial problems, which are finally getting under control). Until last year, he regularly turned down speaking engagements from "the industry" that would've paid a nice 6-figure salary because he was sick of working. He'd rather live modestly than spend another year of his life going from 6 a.m. - midnight for someone else.

That's 30 years in the trenches, scraping by, followed by 35 years of good times, all from hard work.

Let's just say he doesn't have a whole lot of pity for people who work 20 hours a week at McDonalds and expect the government to cover the rest of their bills.

edit: they weren't beanie-weenies, they were actual weiners cut in half and covered in cheese. We called it steak. I didn't eat the beans because of the little globs of fat in them. Eww.

Not bad for someone who was told that he was a retard.

Initiative can do some amazing things. Shame they don't seem to be handing it out by the bucketsful anymore.

That feature has been discontinued. The new models come with Gen-x apathy.

Actually $9.00/hr works out to $17, 280. Federal poverty guidelines for 2006 for a family of 4 are $20,000.00/year or less BEFORE taxes. You were saying about pulling something out of your ass? :eyebrow:

No, let us hope families of 4 don't commonly have to get by on this small sum. Unfortunately, some do - especially thosed headed by single Mom's.

Yeah, Wolf, $9.00 an hour with no benefits is better than nothing. So, let's lower the bar and everyone get by on $3.00/hr - its better than nothing. What was your point?

Noodle, good for your Dad! Sounds like a hard working guy who set a great example for his kids. The Forest Service does not require a vow of povery, by the way. My ex husband was in the Forest Service and we lived quite well. I have a friend whose Dad was in the Forest Service for 30 years, raised two kids, put them through college and retired in a very upscale neighborhood in Colorado Springs. What does any of this have to do with those who lack the benefits of a GI bill to attend college? My Dad was career enlisted. He served in the US military for 30 years. We ate a lot of burgers and hot dogs, too. I got a scholarship to college, worked part time and got two Master's degrees. Had a career that I adored until I got sick with a mysterious illness that my doctors couldn't figure out and here I am. What does any of this have to do with Wal-Mart?

Oh! Health insurance! :p

While I feel that we are authors of our own demise when we buy goods from companies who buy from China (the country that uses slave prison labor), my biggest problem with Wal-Mart is the front of the store-
they NEVER HAVE ANY GEE-DEE CASHIERS WORKING!!!!!

If I go in there at any time I guarantee that there are never more than 3 cashes open. There are 40-50 people waiting to be rung through, and right over their heads is a big banner proclaiming "WAL-MART CARES ABOUT CUSTOMER SERVICE!!!!" Sheeit, I'd hate to see how I'd be treated if they DIDN'T care. I have been getting seriously sick of giving Wal-Mart money when they are too arrogant to even put enough cashiers out to effectively serve a busy day.
The sad thing is, that when Colgate toothpaste is 25% cheaper than the local chainstore, I unfortunately don't make enough money to justify throwing away 25% of it. But then I wait 3 times longer to pay...hmmm how much is my time worth?
Interestingly, I hear that a town in New Brunswick is blocking a Wal-Mart from opening... Rothesay, I believe???

Mari, you're not really one to speak about what one can and cannot do on $9 an hour, since your existance is totally funded by taxpayers and sympathetic donations accrued as a consequence of maudlin newspaper articles.

Wolf, you are not really one to speak to my personal situation since you are going by information that is two years old. I feel no special need to either justify or explain my current situation to you, other than to note that time passes and things change and you are incorrect. :p

And another thing ... your argument regarding the $9/hr worker being below the poverty line is incorrect. If you kick that up to a single wage earner for a dependent family of four, yes, that's below the established poverty line. Employ a second family member, even part time, and they're over.

Poverty line for a SINGLE WORKER under age $65 is $9827. $18720/yr is just under twice that. If you're going to use numbers, use 'em straight.

(source)

:morncoff:
Forgot to secure the laptop before going on break again, eh Wolf?

:rtfm:

Since you object to the numbers from the Federal Register, would you please suggest a publication more to your liking? And Rush Limbaugh transcripts don't count.

it feels GREAT to be back in atlanta, again! wow, did I miss a lot while I was away!

here is the deal, guys. wal-mart is intended to supply high schoolers and college students with jobs during the summer. do you remember when you used to do that? bag boy, register operator, stocking shelves, the whole deal. you got paid little, you worked long hours, and you felt good for it years later. America needs wal-mart and America needs wal-mart with cheap labor. how else is a family of three, four, five, or more supposed to make ends meet? the solution is simple: wal-mart offers low prices thanks to low labor and the fact that they don't have to offer health insurance.

I crack up when I walk into my lawrenceville wal-mart and find people over the age of 18 working there. do you understand why these people are working there? wait for it.

they
can't
do
anything
else.

and it is their own doing, their own fault. they could have gotten an education, they could have made something of themselves in this world, they could have gone to college. instead they find themselves playing the part of the cart greeter, the job originally reserved for that 16 year old looking to make payments on a used camero. those of us that work hard once had one of these jobs. the difference is that those of us that continued to work hard will never hold one like it again. in the meantime, I hope wal-mart never offers health insurance to these people, because that would mean that all of the large families that use wal-marts low low prices will end up taking the hit. my family is not large and I love shopping there. where else can you fill an entire suv full of groceries and pay so little? we NEED this business, people!

wal-mart isnt cheating the people. it is the people and the government that is trying to cheat a well thought-out business. to the people that cry for free health care: WORK HARD, GET AN EDUCATION. anyone is this great country of ours can do it! we all have this beautiful system to thank for where we are today!

Imprint, your arrogance is as unearned as it is unattractive. Why don't you go pull the wings off some flies and stop interrupting adult conversations? :eyebrow:

Walmart

Pot calling the Kettle black again, I see.

Perhaps in some alternate universe, there are stores like Walmart who only employ 16yr olds paying off their first car, but I think in todays society, in the universe we currently inhabit, the requirement for people of mature age to hold jobs in stores like these, is becomming more prevalent.

Not everyone has the same opportunities in life and therefore the outcomes of every individual are going to be different. Why should anyone feel the need to persecute any store or any other business even, for employing older people? Would you rather have that older person, who for whatever reason finds themselves working at Walmart; be on unemployment benefits instead?

I guess the system is different here, but it's becomming more and more like that of the US every day (much in part due to our current government), so I think it's important to consider that it's better to have people employed and be glad that they are, rather than tell them to be ashamed because they didn't make the choices you think they should have as a youth.

I think there are a lot more issues which have been stated previously in this thread which are far more valid to this argument.

One of the unique things about Walmart is that they will employ everybody, regardless of age ... from 16 year old stockers, to that cranky little old lady greeter with osteoporosis who shoves carts at me when I enter the store. They are pretty diverse in terms of demographic, as far as I can tell.

They do seem to be a little light on retards, but perhaps locally we have enough supermarkets and McDonalds.

Do you mean that you think people who work at McDonalds or local supermarkets are retards? BTW...how do you define retard?

Person with an IQ below 70. Technical definition. It's almost a cliche here in the U.S. that those two types of businesses always hire persons with developmental disabilties. I actually think it's a very good thing.

Do they do that on purpose? That is, do they recognize these deficiencies, or is 'retard' just the lable given to people with less than average IQ? Meaning, is it a derogatory term?

It's not the same here. Most of the people employed by McDonalds ARE in fact junior wage earners and generally of at least average intelligence.

To refer to the mentally retarded as "retards" is generally pejorative. To do so fit the tone of my post.

What you are saying of McDonalds is indeed true here in the United States. Fast-food is very often a first job for folks with no experience who are still in high school. You need to be a little sharper on the uptake to work the fryer. As a means of confidence building and mainstreaming for the individuals, and as a big public relations move for the employer, the mentally retarded are often hired by such organizations. They even have very nice television commercials to highlight this that bring a tear to your eye.