We Can Do Better

Dorothea Lange. “Nipomo, Calif. March 1936. Migrant agricultural worker’s family.
Seven hungry children and their mother, aged 32. The father is a native Californian.” Gelatin silver print, 7 3/8 × 9 5/16″ (18.8 × 23.6cm). Farm Security Administration–Office of War Information Photograph Collection, Library of Congress

Hourly Wages
Dollar General: $8
Kroger: $10
Walmart: $11
CVS: $11
Home Depot: $11
Lowe’s: $12

2020 Profits
Dollar General: $1.4 billion
Kroger: $2 billion
Walmart: $15.6 billion
CVS: $6.2 billion
Home Depot: $10 billion
Lowe’s: $4.9 billion

U.S. workers need at least $15/hr and a union.

Per capita health care spending:
Norway: $6,647
United States: $11,072

Number of uninsured/under-insured:
Norway: 0
United States: 92 million

COVID-19 deaths:
Norway (population 5.3 million): 306
Louisiana (population 4.6 million): 6,260

Yes. It is time for Medicare for All.

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https://www.WashingtonPost.com/business/2020/11/18/food-stamps-medicaid-mcdonalds-walmart-bernie-sanders/

Federal Study: Millions of Full-Time Workers Rely on Federal Health Care and Food Assistance Programs – Walmart’s and McDonald’s Employees Lead the Way

by Eli Rosenberg
November 18, 2020 at 5:02 p.m. CST

Some of the biggest and most profitable companies in the United States, including Walmart and McDonald’s, pay their employees such low wages that significant numbers of them must turn to Federal food and medical assistance.

According to a new report from the Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan Congressional watchdog agency, made at the behest of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) there is a direct relationship between employers paying low wages and employees receiving the Federal assistance. The report examined February data from agencies in 11 states that administer the Federal programs Medicaid, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

Walmart was one of the top four employers of SNAP and Medicaid beneficiaries in every state. McDonald’s was in the top 5 of employers with employees receiving federal benefits in at least 9 states.

The GAO research found that in the 9 states that responded about SNAP benefits — Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Nebraska, North Carolina, Tennessee and Washington — Walmart was found to have employed about 14,500 people who were receiving benefits, followed by McDonald’s with 8,780. In six states that reported Medicaid enrollees, Walmart again topped the list, with 10,350 employees, followed by McDonald’s with 4,600.

In Georgia, for example, Walmart employed an estimated 3,959 workers who were on Medicaid — comprising an estimated 2.1% of the total of non-elderly, non-disabled people in the state who were receiving the benefit. McDonald’s was next on the list, employing 1,480 who received Medicaid, or 0.8% of the total of non-elderly, non-disabled people on the program.

In Oklahoma, 1,059 Walmart workers on Medicaid made up 2.8% of the state’s total, and McDonald’s was next, with 536 workers, or 1.4%.

In Arkansas, where Walmart was founded and maintains its global headquarters, 1,318 employees were receiving SNAP benefits — comprising 3.1% of the state’s total. McDonald’s was next on the list with 865 workers, which made for 2% of the state’s total.  And in Georgia, another 3% of SNAP recipients worked for Walmart.

The GAO report found that the next companies with large numbers of workers receiving federal benefits included Dollar Tree, Dollar General, Amazon, Burger King and FedEx. (Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)

In a statement by McDonald’s spokeswoman Morgan O’Marra, the company claimed

Research: Higher Wages Reduces Smoking

September 7, 2015
Raising the minimum wage could benefit health, say researchers. 

 A 10% increase in wages leads to a 5% decrease in the rate of smoking. That is especially true for male employees with a low level of education, report scientists from the UC Davis Health System in Sacramento in the “Annals of Epidemiology.” Moreover, the likelihood of quitting smoking increases from 17-20%.

For their study, researchers analyzed data from full time workers aged 21 to 69 in the years 1999 to 2009 and

Pitchfork in the Road: America’s Economic Future – Poverty & Insurrection, or Abundance & Peace?

“How much is enough?” is a qood question to ask many folks, especially some among the Wall $treet crowd.

And to be certain, the two principles of “the worker is worthy of their hire,” and “You must not muzzle an ox to keep it from eating as it treads out the grain” are equally compelling ethics.

As those two ethics concern our nation’s economy, we can point to times in history where various nations suffered revolution, and the most common causes of revolution.

In fact, I wrote at length about it in this blog in 2011, and observed in part that, “…it’s not as if uproars have never happened before. They happen with great regularity and frequency. In fact, they’re quite predictable. Yes, predictable. It’s called “history.” The maxim goes something like this: “Those who forget the lessons of history are condemned to repeat them.” And so, any reasonable or prudent person should ask, “What are the lessons of history?””

Just remember this: Food, Clothing, Shelter. If you can’t get them with what you have, you’ll fight, kill, go to war, or civil insurrection, to obtain the basic necessities of life.

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The Pitchforks Are Coming… For Us Plutocrats

By NICK HANAUER
Nick Hanauer is a Seattle-based entrepreneur.

July/August 2014

Memo: From Nick Hanauer
To: My Fellow Zillionaires

You probably don’t know me, but like you I am one of those .01%ers, a proud and unapologetic capitalist. I have founded, co-founded and funded more than 30 companies across a range of industries—from itsy-bitsy ones like the night club I started in my 20s to giant ones like Amazon.com, for which I was the first nonfamily investor. Then I founded aQuantive, an Internet advertising company that was sold to Microsoft in 2007 for $6.4 billion. In cash. My friends and I own a bank. I tell you all this to demonstrate that in many ways I’m no different from you. Like you, I have a broad perspective on business and capitalism. And also like you, I have been rewarded obscenely for my success, with a life that the other 99.99 percent of Americans can’t even imagine. Multiple homes, my own plane, etc., etc. You know what I’m talking about. In 1992, I was selling pillows made by my family’s business, Pacific Coast Feather Co., to retail stores across the country, and the Internet was a clunky novelty to which one hooked up with a loud squawk at 300 baud. But I saw pretty quickly, even back then, that many of my customers, the big department store chains, were already doomed. I knew that as soon as the Internet became fast and trustworthy enough—and that time wasn’t far off—people were going to shop online like crazy. Goodbye, Caldor. And Filene’s. And Borders. And on and on.

Nick Hanauer
With over 30 years of experience across a broad range of industries including manufacturing, retailing, e-commerce, digital media and advertising, software, aerospace, health care, and finance. Hanauer’s experience and perspective have produced an unusual record of serial successes. Hanauer has managed, founded or financed over 30 companies, creating aggregate market value of tens of billions of dollars. Some notable companies Include Amazon.com, Aquantive Inc., (purchased by Microsoft in 2007 for $6.4 billion), Insitu group (purchased by Boeing for $400 million), Market Leader (purchased by Trulia in 2013 for $350 million). Some other companies include Marchex, Newsvine, Qliance, Seattle Bank and Pacific Coast Feather Company. – Photo by Robbie McClaran

Realizing that, seeing over the horizon a little faster than the next guy, was the strategic part of my success. The lucky part was that I had two friends, both immensely talented, who also saw a lot of potential in the web. One was a guy you’ve probably never heard of named Jeff Tauber, and the other was a fellow named Jeff Bezos. I was so excited by the potential of the web that I told both Jeffs that I wanted to invest in whatever they launched, big time. It just happened that the second Jeff—Bezos—called me back first to take up my investment offer. So I helped underwrite his tiny start-up bookseller. The other Jeff started a web department store called Cybershop, but at a time when trust in Internet sales was still low, it was too early for his high-end online idea; people just weren’t yet ready to buy expensive goods without personally checking them out (unlike a basic commodity like books, which don’t vary in quality—Bezos’ great insight). Cybershop didn’t make it, just another dot-com bust. Amazon did somewhat better. Now I own a very large yacht.

But let’s speak frankly to each other. I’m not the smartest guy you’ve ever met, or the hardest-working. I was a mediocre student. I’m not technical at all—I can’t write a word of code. What sets me apart, I think, is a tolerance for risk and an intuition about what will happen in the future. Seeing where things are headed is the essence of entrepreneurship. And what do I see in our future now?

I see pitchforks.

At the same time that people like you and me are

Who Pays Unskilled Labor US $80,000/year?!

“For Scripture says, “Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain,” and “The worker deserves his wages.”“
-1Tim5:18

Lately, much has been made of raising the Minimum Wage, which does nothing more than establish a minimum standard.

But who cares about minimums?

We should strive to exceed!

Some well-known, publicly-traded, highly profitable firms, however, revel in greed, and wallow in the slop, when they can do far better for the employees who operate their businesses.

The question is often asked “why pay unskilled workers $10 or even more per hour?”

It’s a valid question, and deserves a genuinely thoughtful response.

So, let’s pose that question to BIG OIL COMPANIES in Williston, North Dakota, where…

“oilfield companies pay unskilled 19 year-olds $80,000 a year.”

 

http://www.marketplace.org/topics/economy/mall-middle-what-used-be-nowhere

by Dan Weissmann
Monday, June 16, 2014 – 15:21

Williston, North Dakota, has the nation’s highest rents. Thanks to the fracking boom, a basic apartment in Williston costs more than something similar in New York or San Francisco. And it comes with a lot fewer amenities.

For instance, shopping. If Walmart doesn’t have it, the nearest outlet is at least two hours away. Now, a Swiss investment firm has announced plans to