Dollars bring change?

...and I don't mean the jingly kind.

I used to like Wal-Mart. Back before Sam died and "Made in the USA" went ever so quietly away. Sam was an aspiring monopolist no doubt, but at least his multitude of stores were at least selling U.S. goods (thus supporting American labor). I might be mistaken but I think I remember a time when they bragged about the high percentage of US to imported goods on their shelves.

But those days are LONG gone. Not so long in years but VERY long in terms of how far from that ideal Wal-Mart has come. Today, Wal-Mart is an enormous employer in the U.S. As a matter of fact, they are the numero uno private employer in the U.S. Only the U.S. government employs more. Their website has a link to http://www.walmartfacts.com/FactSheets/ that stated

"Wal-Mart is the nation’s largest private employer and a leading employer of minorities, with more than 225,000 African American associates; more than 150,000 Hispanic associates; and more than 240,000 seniors who are 55 or older." and "Wal-Mart employs 1.8 million associates worldwide, including 1.3 million in the United States."

Now to my point. You would think that this company that supported the American worker would be a provider of good paying jobs with good benefits.
Alas, it is not so. Their main site claims

"Our average hourly wage for regular full-time associates in the U.S. is $9.68 an hour, almost double the federal minimum wage."

while their propagan...errr, fact site claims

"Wal-Mart’s average, full-time hourly wage is $10.11 and is even higher in urban areas, where the cost of living is higher."

While this might sound like its not so low let me make a couple of observances.

1. This is ONLY an average of FULL time employees (they won't say what their average is for part-time employees).
2. This INCLUDES their store managers and floor managers (to a large degree considering the exclusion of part time labor).
3. Full time to Wal-Mart is not a 40 hour work week. This means in order to claim that they hire xyz number of full time employees (a major argument that Wal-Mart uses to help open stores) they have lowered their consideration of full time to 25+ hours per week. This means an Full-Time employee earns between $252.75 and $404.40 a week or $13,143-$21,028.80 a year for full time employment. [Assuming $10.11/hour] Now this is before Payroll Taxes, Income Taxes, and Insurance payments are deducted. Not exactly even a living wage is it? But isn't it great!! There are 1.8 million of these Poverty level full time employees out there!!!

This post is starting to lose its way. So I'll have to wrap it up and continue at another time about the WONDERFUL WALLY WORLD!!

B

P.S. The thread title "dollars bring change?" refers to the boycotting of Wal-Mart that myself and so far one friend have agreed to. My receipts per month there were around $500 per month alone (they killed the local grocery store). I now drive 20 miles to a nearby town to shop in a local market. The extra cost per item and gas to get there is FAR less than WE are losing by getting Wal-Mart goods so cheap. But I'll get into that in a later post.