General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: WAPO: Fact checks AOC statements on living and minimum wage [View all]JCanete
(5,272 posts)ridiculous sweet-heart deals that they do not deserve so that they can set up shop in localities, and in the case of Amazon, help to nationally erode competition, and in the case of Walmart, locally destroy competition. And Amazon's pr decision to raise wages has only come now, in the last couple of months, as if it can't be pointed out that shit was only yesterday very different and that Sanders was literally using his platform to call them out on this matter. The article's fluff...oh that's right, who owns Wapo....is pretty transparent.
How is it that the article fails miserably to account for those public dollars that these companies are depriving the American citizen when it does its accounting? All of those tax loopholes....Amazon's abilitiy to skirt sales tax liablity for years and years giving them a massive advantage on their competition regarding product pricing, just as one egregious example...
Nor do I have any idea where that 11 dollar figure for Walmart employees comes from. Is that a flat number that is a national rate, assuming Walmart does not have a varying scale depending on cost of living indices, in which case that would be below minimum in some places(obviously they have to pay minimum), or is it an average, in which case, places with higher minimum wage would raise the national average and make this number bogus? Its certainly not accurate to simply state that that is what they pay to every starting employee. Some piece of this puzzle is being omitted, because otherwise, it would mean that in all high cost of living areas Walmart is doing no better, and actually worse than minimum wage. Why is this article so effing bad? I mean, I know the reason, but jesus.
And some employees would certainly choose part time...the issue is that companies like Walmart do and have designed their staffing intentionally around part time, and prefer it to paying full time benefits.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/businesses-eliminated-hundreds-of-thousands-of-full-time-jobs-to-avoid-obamacare-mandate-2017-11-24
And what exactly is misleading? Because the companies say that this is misleading? Why am I hearing about what they "say" in a fact-check article? Shouldn't the article be fact-checking rather than handing out pinochios because the companies are saying something else? How about the article fact-checks the companies and tells us how many pinochios they should get?
And how would Sanders proposal not raise wages? The tax he proposed would literally be contingent upon whether or not employees need and get government assistance, which means that while companies may simply pony up to the government, which sure, wouldn't directly put more money into employee pockets, they may instead, it looks better anyway, simply offer more full-time work and pay more of their employees in a way that reduces the company's tax liability. If they choose not to, this is still an infusion into the commons that will cover what these companies are basically milking out of our system now.
I have no idea how the article could attempt to make the case that given that dependency built into Sanders proposed legislation, that taxes simply get paid and employees are the ones who pony up for those higher corporate taxes in their own reduced wages. That literally makes no sense here, nor frankly, ever. That's such a Republican talking point to suggest that higher taxes results in lower wages.
And literally in their article, the author admits that companies are able to capture 20-30 percent of benefits of eitc and medicare and food stamps...THEN says that's not a significant ammount. According to who? 20-30 percent isn't a significant amount? They started at 0 and then had to admit that was incorrect, but now 20-30 is still no real leeching benefit? I fully admit that I'm struggling with what the article is saying here, and maybe I misunderstand this, so if you have some insight here I'd love to read your take.