$11 minimum ?

Spook

Well-known Member
Wallmart is upping their pay to a minimum of $11 per hour. IMHO, this is going to a lot of pressure on small businesses.
 
Pete black- "They will just reduce the number of workers."

Think about what you said. A business is in business to make money. They don't just hire workers just because they felt like it. They have streamlined their hiring practices for maximum efficiency. They don't have much room to reduce their workforce any lower...either they will have to raise pay or shutter the business.
 
They can also reduce hours. The favored employees will work extra brown nose hours for some OT. There are always ra ra company bottom feeders. MHO
 
pete black- "32 checkout out lanes and only 4 are open."

I wasn't referring to Walmart, I was talking about Walmarts competitors either having to raise wages or shutting their doors.
 
I'm not following anybody's logic here. Nobody forced them to do it. The minimum wage didn't go up to that rate. They must be able to afford it or they wouldn't have done it.
 
I just read not 10 minutes ago that Walmart "abrubtly" shut down several Sams Club Stores around the country... Maybe that's why! Story said employees showed up to work, & the doors were locked.
 
OK GUYS,,,it was just on the radio. Wallmart is closing 53 Sams clubs
nation wide. Some closed today and they didn't even tell the
employees. Most of the targeted stores will close within two weeks.
There is your answer.
 
The unemployment rate nationally is lower than it has been in a long time. More money to lure more employees. Most companies in this market (Fargo) that want employees are paying more to get them. There are
some companies that keep crying about not being able to get anyone for minimum wage, most have stepped up and paid market rate. The unfortunate part is that while the lower end has come up, skilled trades has
not gained much. Why would I pull wrenches for $18/hr when I can flip burgers for $14+ and they provide the spatula.
 
i really shouldn't be commenting on the Walmart post as Walmart has become my last go to place to shop. any number of reasons apply. sam's, well i refuse to pay a fee to shop their stores. yea, i have gotten old, needs and wants have lessened, thoughts and opinions increased.
 
Walmart can't win.When they pay low wages people like you complain they're robbing their employees but when they pay higher wages you complain they're hurting other companies.I think
some folks just like to b*tch and complain its what they do.
 
I don't see how Wal-Mart paying $11 will hurt other businesses.
Most of Wal-Mart's employees are college students.
 
Checked in on Kmart lately? Right now they are closing 2 stores within 30 or so miles of us. Sears is also pulling in their tentacles.
 
Just a publicity ploy in my mind. Minimum wage is heading there and in some states it will surpass 11.00 per hour in just a few years. Most of their volume of sales is in populous states where minimum wage is already over 10.00 dollars per hour. They can always replace workers down the road after peoples' attention has shifted and go back to less than 11.00 dollars per hour in states where it is legal to do so. As far as skeleton crews go Walmart has already pared labor back to where their stores look like landfills or empty shelves. If they could come up with a way to get customers to unload the truck and stack things in the warehouse as well as check themselves out Walmart would do it. People say tough toe nails when Sears could not compete with modern retailing but we are supposed to cry over Walmart being understaffed. Outside of perishables (food) most other products can be handled in a manner like Amazon. Not that working for Amazon is a picnic.
 
RR many states voted in higher minimum wages (mine was one) referendum on a ballot. I would be happy to discuss some of it with you. We don't know the outcome as it is to early in the game. but business must reduce cost, cut services, or increase prices to deal with such situations.
 
WalMart put the local town square stores out of business years ago. I believe that our urges to go there and buy cheap Chinese goods have helped destroy what America was, but here we are. Sam's clubs shutdowns may well be a reflection of Amazon and competitive online retail stores taking so much of their business. I have heard various opinions about the kind of folks that work at WalMart, our local one has most people too old for college.
 
seriously? where do you live? most of the employees (at least on day shift) at our WM are semi retired, tired, 40+, physically handicapped or three cards short of a deck. very few young ones.
 
Walmart will be going to no checkers. They are already trying out newer ways to check yourself out. Part of the deal is to force you to do self checkout. That's is why the have 22 checkout stations and only very few are open.
 
Year but!

http://nationalpost.com/news/the-inconvenient-truths-of-the-minimum-wage-increase

Looks like proponents of same here in Oz should look at the Canadian experience rather than beat up US successes to support the notion
 

Pet sitters also. We know a woman doing pet sitting, for a number of clients, that averages over 300 per day.
 
you will see quality of wallmart worker go up they will not put up with the minimum wage mentality and skill you see now in wallmart worker....most I see in wallmart are not worth minimum wage now
 
Our Gov. Here in NY rammed through a law to raise all fast food hourly pay to $15 bucks per hr.
I guess WM here has to keep up or go to self serve checkouts, as said below.
I would think that if one could get $15 bucks per hr. He/She could be able to break a $50 dollar bill for change!!!!!.
A month ago we went to Lowes to buy a new water heater, paid cash, 4 C notes, cashier had to call for help. I had to laugh, because a young lad who was called to help transport the water heater and I just stood there and shook our heads. The check out manager wasn't real swift either.
Loren
 
The minimum wage was legislated here to $14per hour from 11 and change and will rise
to 15 next year, all enforced by our provincial government to provide ' a living
wage'.....not that a decent living can be made at that level anyhow. Our coffee stop,
Tim Hortons, equal to your Starbucks, responded by cutting benefit sharing to their
employees, cutting the number of paid days off and making staff pay for their
uniforms...all legal ,but condemned by labour organizations. The government's
reasoned that the extra pay would be returned to the economy and grow it as a result.
Well, it will likely put inflationary pressure on it since now other workers are
demanding an increase in their pay to maintain the spread between their wage and
minimum. If Tim's passed on the wage increase instead of burdening their staff
further, a meal there would go up by 7 cents, which most would pay with no issues.
The one other positive thing about this is that it increases the spread between
minimum and subsidized income ( or welfare) and may give some an incentive to work to
raise their standard of living. Wishful thinking? I guess we will see how this works
out over time. Buy the way, out 14 dollar minimum is about the same as your 11 dollar
figure, but it is more expensive to live in the great white North than in the
friendly states.
Ben
 
Why would you tell employees you are closing their store as that would encourage reprisals, theft , sick pay. What you don't know is what they are paying for severance pay which might be 2 weeks or more and they don't even have to work.
 
I'm surprised Walmart was able to hire people for less than $11/hour, especially part time people with limited benefits.
 
Around here most are at $15 or above anyway.heard walmart starts in the 15 range now. Mcdonalds has been for a while now. The only ones less are restaurants that pay only a token and depend on tips.
 
Really suprised that there is not a standard applied to the minimum wage according to the laws of supply and demand similar to the logic used to set of the fed interest rate.
 
(quoted from post at 13:23:35 01/11/18) you are correct, 32 checkout out lanes and only 4 are open.

Now you're confused with Kmart. That's how they put themselves out of business. You could get in, select your merchandise, but you couldn't get out. One checker and five joking around at the service desk.

Like it or not, Sam Walton started his business when Woolco and Kmart were mature and struggling. He must have met some kind of market need.
 
the last time state of wisconsin made fast food places raise wages one i know about let some of his people go and told others they had to put in more hours.
manager told me if $ 15 per hour goes thru corporate will shut this store down
 
Shopped at Walmart maybe half dozen times while traveling. Don't like their business practices. As for minimum wage. They will have to raise their prices on their goods. People will not dine there as much. People will not shop at their stores and go to the internet where a lot of business on there offer free shipping. Where will they be then??
 
Not to defend Tim Horton's actions, but I would be interested to know how many other employers are doing the same thing?
The underlying reason of this wage increase is an attempt to win votes.
 
Like it or not, Sam Walton started his business when Woolco and Kmart were mature and struggling. He must have met some kind of market need.

YES, and all those mom and pop stores (that Sam supposedly put out of business) could have done the same as Sam and grown their business
 
Nobody really suffers but old people on a fixed income. Raising wages is like taxing corporations, it is just a pass through. I used to eat out frequently but I quit because the cost is not worth it. A lot of other things like hair cuts also. I started letting my wife cut my hair. I worked hard all my life, spent a lot of nights away from home and saved all I could. Tax and inflation has eaten up every thing that I saved.
 
Most jobs have supply and demand already in place. As for minimum wage enactments, politicians periodically appeal to low information voters by raising the minimum wage, then after cause and effect results in fewer jobs, blame it on greedy capitalists.
 
In other words, the motivated, harder working employees get extra and the non-motivated (lazy) employees get dumped. That's just inhumane. Where's the "social justice"?
 
The new tax bill just signed by nnalert has reduced their Tax Liability substantially. There will be business expansion and wages are going to rise because of the demand for good workers. You can see this coming because of what is happening in the stock market.
 
I think it is fair to say that raising the minimum wage is in truth only a sign of the diminishing value and
buying power of a dollar. Most things cost about ten or more times what they cost in the 60's. Therefore the
minimum wage will need to be ten times as high too , to allow the worker earning that wage the same buying
power. It is called , "inflation". Your money in the bank becomes worth less and less , because of the low
rate of prime lending, and interest paid on money in savings accounts and bonds. So to hedge against
inflation , you must invest in some thing tangible, like gold, or real estate for example. Maybe even old
tractors, if you buy the right ones.
 
The way I read it is if Wal-mart gives everybody a raise, the prices of goods go up, which effectively means you get a pay cut. Sorry if I read too far into that, I have a way of doing that.
 
They're basically keeping up with Ontario. Minimum wage went to $14/hr in Ontario. $14 CAD is $11.18 USD. I really hope Wynne doesn't get re-elected. What an evil
woman. It's as bad as if you guys got nnalert Clinton, cept Wynne has proven herself to be a horrible person and horrible politician.
 
farmer boy- "Sorry if I read too far into that, I have a way of doing that."

Yup, I do the same thing. LOL That's why I asked.
 
Wonder how much this young lady makes? Saw
her last summer.
a253529.jpg
 
Yes, but today Walmart announced that it's closing 63 Sam's Club stores nationwide that will unemploy something like 1,000.

Mark
 
Dumb question:
Wouldn't any increase in corn, grain or any other farm commodity prices be just as terrible for the economy as this increase in a few peoples wages? It all seems to depend on weather the increase directly benefits you or not.
 
My $ per hour will buy me less after they get their raise to $11 because most likely goods will cost
me more. If I got a big raise, then somewhere along the line, my boss ( Smithfield) would have to
raise prices wouldn't they to offset expenses? I'm not educated enough to explain it, maybe someone
here can do it so it makes sense.
 
Guess that's great news for the Walmart/Sams haters they can go back to high prices and low wages at locally owned stores that sell the same products as Walmart/Sams did just at a
higher price.
 
That $11 an hour is exactly what I was making when I retired after 41 years as mechanic at local IH, CASEIH, and Deere dealer. Often, over the earlier years, as the only mechanic in the shop. That was 18 years ago now and I think they are making about 40 % more now down there on average. Wages are something people are reluctant to tell you what they get. I never was. I had health insurance, as only benefit and Deere dealer bought my uniforms. Of course I started out at $.91 in 1958. Back then I could buy four gallons of gasoline for my car with hour wage and when I retired I could buy four gallons for hour pay. Had no hospital insurance for the first 11 years. Right now, I have out lived my saved or accumulated money. Keep on paying into that social security fund guys.

Oh, shop rate was $2.50 when I started and $47 when I left. Close to $100 now. And so it goes. I am out dated.
 
There was no inflation in America for 150 years until the creation of the Federal Reserve System in 1913. The Federal Reserve is a private banking cartel that can print money at will. Money printing is what causes inflation. One ounce of gold has held its value, but the Federal Reserve note has declined in value by about 95% since 1913. Gold and silver are money, a Federal Reserve note is an "I
O.U. Nothing" note. The US government works with the Federal Reserve system to steal money right out of your pocket and from your retirement by understating inflation.
 
If the minimum wage goes to 15 dollars an hour, fast food employees will be worse off because they will no longer qualify for govt. assistance.
EBT card, help with electric bill, etc.
 
I'm not a Walmart store fan but am a Sams member and do shop Sams. I also try to first shop local in my small town whenever possible. I learned my lesson here at YT years back about telling folks how to spend their money. Someone linked to a Deere 3010 or 3020 that was restored as I recall, had nice photos, but the new owner paid $17,000 for it. A lot of fellas here commented about the post and I was one of them that opened my big yap about what kind of fool would... One of the fellas that used to post here, a real good guy that used to go under TXBLU for his Ford tractor, and then TXGRN for his 4320 Deere T'd right off on me for that, and he was 100% correct in pointing out that I had lost my senses about what someone should or shouldn't do with their own money. I miss Mark from Texas. He was a good fella that brought me back to my senses...for the most part. I'm guessing that was a decade or two ago.

Mark
 
Their ceo went on tv and talked about how higher wages increased employee retention, lowered training costs, and gave a better customer experience. I know our local one here is cleaner and brighter than it used to be. As far as Sams club, it seems they are losing out to Costco.
 
(quoted from post at 14:54:43 01/11/18) WalMart put the local town square stores out of business years ago. I believe that our urges to go there and buy cheap Chinese goods have helped destroy what America was, but here we are. Sam's clubs shutdowns may well be a reflection of Amazon and competitive online retail stores taking so much of their business. I have heard various opinions about the kind of folks that work at WalMart, our local one has most people too old for college.

Frankly it wasn't "urges" it was necessity. Prices keep going up. Wages haven't.
 
I think you are missing some facts to be honest. Tim Hortons are for the majority franchise outlets, so it is the individual owners doing the cuts, not the company itself. On that note, Tim?s isn?t even Canadian anymore, it?s owned by a Brazilian food conglomerate that has a very nasty record of cutting back quality of products and support provided to franchises. In the last year, Tim?s has been sending cost cutting measures down to the franchise level and by the most part, the individual owners have been swallowing the cost, they do not set prices, head office does. The simple fact is the owner needs to make money to survive and if cutting some employee perks is required, so be it since they are not breaking any laws at all. It is a situation that the customer,owner,and employees all lose and the corporation hasn?t lost a thing. People can boycott all they want, but they are just punishing the employees and owners, the corporation will get its full earnings no matter what, as long as there are franchises who want to stay in business.
 
No it's a band aid for a much larger problem as Blue tractor man and Bruce from Canada explained.
Paul
 
(quoted from post at 00:31:54 01/12/18) Guess that's great news for the Walmart/Sams haters they can go back to high prices and low wages at locally owned stores that sell the same products as Walmart/Sams did just at a
higher price.

HAR! :lol: Nailed it!!!
 
(quoted from post at 00:37:31 01/12/18) There was no inflation in America for 150 years until the creation of the Federal Reserve System in 1913. The Federal Reserve is a private banking cartel that can print money at will. Money printing is what causes inflation. One ounce of gold has held its value, but the Federal Reserve note has declined in value by about 95% since 1913. Gold and silver are money, a Federal Reserve no)te is an "I
O.U. Nothing" note. The US government works with the Federal Reserve system to steal money right out of your pocket and from your retirement by understating inflation.

It's a heck of a lot more complex than that. And there most certainly was inflation prior to the formation of the Fed (look at the chart provided- http://www.24hgold.com/english/contributor.aspx?article=4269461978G10020&contributor=Tim+Iacono ) There were many examples of both inflation and deflation prior to the creation of the Fed, some inflation rates in excess of 10% per year. I'm no fan of the Fed, but the gold and silver standards tie the economic hands of a nation. That being said, the relatively vast amounts of currency in circulation to days do effectively lower the value of the dollar, of that there is no doubt. But there isn't enough physical gold in the world to allow us to go back to the gold standard even if we owned every ounce of it. Yeah, I'd like to see the Fed audited and I'd like to see some oversight, but there is good in the system too.
 
OK what WalMart will do is lay folks off, then offer them a different position. They did that the last time they raised wages. Most of the "new positions" were the same as the old with a different title. Thing is most were fewer hours to the point that they were part time with no bennies.

OK lets say that minimum wage is 10% behind the cost of living. Wage is 7.50 and cost of living says it should be 15. So you raise minimum wage 100% to 15. Problem fixed right? Thing is that when you kick up minimum wage 10% inflation quickly goes up 10%. So raise minimum wage 100% inflation goes up 100% and so does the gap between what the minimum wage worker is earning and the cost of living......so now they are 20% behind.

Go look it up. The closest minimum wage has been to the cost of living was back in the late 60's IIRC. No big experiment here as some people think. The facts and figures are available right here in the net.

Rick
 
Just look into how much professional athletes, actors, entertainers, and business CEO's are making and you won't be concerned about the
minimum wage rate in this country.....and you won't have to worry about where all the money has gone in this country.
 
Good old Sam Walton started WalMart in small towns that the big boys didn't want to play in, after he built up a strong business then he started moving into the bigger markets and going head to head with the
folks that were laughing at him for putting stores in cites of 10,000 or less. As far as them setting a new hiring wage, that's not a minimum wage, it's a wage they choose to set and the announcement I heard
about it was they claimed that most of the money that financed the wage increase was coming from the reduction in taxes under the new tax bill (yet the anti-Trumpers and "Greedy Mean Corporation" types are
insisting all the money the government "gave" corporation will never be seen by the poor or even average Joe).

Now let's talk about minimum wage, I currently live in North Central Iowa and minimum wage is a moot point, most laces pay at least $10.00/hour, heck our local McDonalds advertises $12.50/hour to start.
Why? Because the demand for labor has outpaced the supply and if a business wants to actually get employees that will show up and work they need t pay a bit more, that's pretty much how it works, it's not
the government directly causing it it's trickle down economics, businesses see the potential for profit and they have increased their wages in the attempt to attract people of significant quality to make
their business plan work.

The back side or the interesting thing about wages in America? A lot of the prosperity of the last century was the result of the automobile and the effects it had on out society. Henry Ford made a broad
play and increased the wages at his assembly plants, an action that at first seemed illogical, but in the long run did an awful lot to increase the size of the market for the automobiles he was producing.
Was he irrational or a genius? In some aspects he was an early SJW (Social Justice Warrior) and wanted to use his company to improve the lives of people and their communities and in many respects he did but
also happened to make himself very rich in the process.
 
(quoted from post at 18:30:24 01/13/18)

Henry Ford made a broad
play and increased the wages at his assembly plants, an action that at first seemed illogical, but in the long run did an awful lot to increase the size of the market for the automobiles he was producing.
Was he irrational or a genius? In some aspects he was an early SJW (Social Justice Warrior) and wanted to use his company to improve the lives of people and their communities and in many respects he did but
also happened to make himself very rich in the process.

Henry gets a lot of credit for things that weren't always the way it's told. He upped the wages because he couldn't get people to stand in one place putting bolt A in hole B all day long. And no, he wasn't a SJW, he was a tyrant in many respects that believed far more in social engineering (to his ideals of course) than in social justice. Never forget he used the Pinkertons and similar thugs and goons on his workers. Like a lot of other famous figures (Edison, McArthur, FDR) he's treated rather kindly by current history.
 
The money supply is not stagnant but dynamic. I don't care what athletes and others make because it doesn't affect me. If I have a good or service including my labor for sale I can get for it what the market figures it is worth. Money is created when production increases and demands it.
 
The Fed doesn't print money only the Treasury dept can do that. The Fed can change the money supply by buying and selling govt bonds. Their job is to control inflation primarily which they have done fairly well over the past few years. They have to do this usually in opposition to the Federal Govt wanting to borrow and spend more than they should. Right now if the Fed raised the interest rate anywhere close to what the demand for money is the Govt would go into hysterics because of the increase in the Federal debt.
 
I like it when corporations do well for they are made up of people and yes some ordinary folks like myself whose 401K and whatever is invested in them. I own a small (very small) share of a lot of companies and when they do well I do well. They exist to maximize the dollar and I worked to do the same. Henry Ford raised the daily wage to 5.00 not because he was altruistic but because he figured it would help his bottom line and it did. Great idea but we all prospered for it. Take away the incentive to achieve and we will look like Russia just a few years back.
 
The mom and pop stores that still exist buy their inventory wherever it is the cheapest just like the big stores. They served a purpose but for the most part that purpose is gone. If you don't stay competitive you go away. I shop at Wal Mart and am glad they exist but when something better comes along I will change my allegiance real fast. I mostly buy now online and but don't feel beholden to any one resource for the stuff I want.
 
Tyson Foods is building a huge chicken enterprise in my hometown. They will grow, feed and process millions of chickens a year and their starting wage is 13.00 which will put pressure on Wal Mart and other stores to increase wages. that doesn't bother me a bit. Problem here is too few workers that can pass drug tests or that have any kind of work ethic but the ones that do will advance. I was a poor kid off the farm and worked in a factory 5 years before started to college and then worked my way through. Never made a lot of money but was never unemployed either and was able to put a little aside. One's attitude is the biggest ingredient in how well a person does in the work world.
 
I worked several years in a closed shop union job and I found I was unemployed or out on strike more than I worked. They had their place but like the mom and pop stores they are no longer relevant at least not in my neck of the woods.
 
We all have a vested interest in the economy and we pick winners and losers by our shopping habits. Are we mean or unjust because we do,
no we are just trying to maximize our efforts which is why our system of capitalism works. Now when govt gets involved the whole thing
gets cockeyed and we see just what most of this thread was about. Some hate Walmart but love Amazon, some like the increase in minimum
wage and some see it as another govt intervention that while it may appear to be just has it cons as well.

Our biggest problem as a nation imo is the poor education most of our kids are receiving-and most of it is due the students and their
parents fault- that and the effect of drugs have made many of us a nation of takers and not contributors. Whether you are young or old
never stop trying to improve yourself to make yourself more valuable to your present employer and the one who you would like to work for.
Minimum wage jobs were never supposed to be the terminal job but an entry into the work world where one could learn the skills it took to
be successful. I would say most of those working for minimum wage have given little if any thought to their future but with the min wage
and govt subsidies like housing, food stamps and the rest figure they can make it. What a dismal and disappointing view of life.
 
(quoted from post at 06:55:56 01/18/18) The money supply is not stagnant but dynamic. I don't care what athletes and others make because it doesn't affect me. If I have a good or service including my labor for sale I can get for it what the market figures it is worth. Money is created when production increases and demands it.

To an extent, yes. Thats how fiat currencies work. The problem is that some gov'ts, ours for example, print money to purposely devalue the dollar. QE 1, 2, 3 ring a bell? The monetary base is up 537% since the year 2000.
 

My company went to paying a minimum of $15 an hour to hourly folks, mostly they are processing clerks and call center workers (all in the U.S.), a couple of years ago. These are all office jobs.
 
(quoted from post at 15:19:00 01/18/18)
My company went to paying a minimum of $15 an hour to hourly folks, mostly they are processing clerks and call center workers (all in the U.S.), a couple of years ago. These are all office jobs.

I wonder what the average difference in their take home is? My oldest daughter got a raise and lost more than she gained. It's tough for the working poor...poor being those $12-18@ hour workers these days!
 

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