“It’s just the American thing to do.”

Finally someone in government/power is taking action against Wal-Mart and their crappy treatment of workers. I wish this bill would come to California. This state spends tons of money on workers on public assistance.

But, Hobo, with the minimum wage part of the bill, this bill “takes action” AGAINST low-earning winners and small business.

There is a contradiction in this bill. On one hand, they want to get Wal-Mart employees off the public health care rolls. On the other hand, they want to get more people unemployed and on the welfare rolls.

The $1 minimum wage increase would force employers to get rid of thousands of low-paying jobs through attrition and layoffs.

This effort also negatively impacts another concern raised by “Wal Mart Watchers” - the mom-and-pop outfits, who make up the majority of the minimum wage payers. After they are forced to lay off some of the employees, they will then be stuck with what amounts to a $1/hour tax paid for every employee hour worked. Is it OK that large numbers of small businesses will go under because of this? Wal-Mart will be able to weather this bill, but it will clobber small business.

Look at a small business (like an independent bookstore/newstand) that has three teenagers who work there for extra money, at minimum wage. Along comes this bill. The company has to fire one of them. As it keeps two of them, they have to pay out $4000 more per year. Thats a nice burden to place on small businesses

The minimum wage provision is a “poison pill” because it punishes some of the least among us and harms small business.

The minimum wage is $5.15 per hour. Wal-Mart pays an average of $9.68 an hour and it offers good benefits. Health care is not required by law. Employees who cannot or will not buy health insurance through Wal-Mart get health care elsewhere. Nationwide, about 5% of Wal-Mart employees receive some form of medicaid. This number is average for the retail sector. Medicaid benefits the employee not Wal-Mart. Health care is a personal responsibility. Your employer is not required by law to pay for your health care just as they are not required to make your mortgage payment or car insurance payment.

Wal-Mart is not using Medicaid benefits so how can you say that Wal-Mart is stealing tax money? Wouldn’t Wal-Mart employees currently receiving Medicaid be receiving even MORE aid if they were unemployed? Wal-Mart SAVES us money. Be trutful about that, at least.

We’ve already been through this. If it’s right for walmart then it should be right for every employer in the state.

The minimum wage increase it outragous. I’ve been in the job market of in the neighborhood of 30 years and I have never seen a dollar an hour wage increase. What I would like to know is who is going to employ the citezens if this bill passes? Looks like someone isn’t thinking about the fact that the healthcare thing is discouraging new large employers from locating in the state, and the increase in the minimum wage sure isn’t going to do nothing for the small shops and businesses.

Isn’t it strange that these types of things are proposed and in some cases implememted.  Then when it hit’s the fan, the fingers of the implementers start pointing at the people who opposed it in the first place, with excuses as to why it didn’t work.

In Wisconsin, as the chains could buy items at a cheaper price, because of volume buying, in an effort to keep the larger chains from offering loss leaders, they created a law that demanded all business must charge at least a 6% markup over cost.  Did this help the little guy as proposed?  No!!  In fact, it hurt the little guy.  Where the little guy in the past, was able to offer loss leaders themselves to get people into their stores and make up the difference on sales of higher priced items, now they could not do that because they had to add 6% to their cost, which was already more than the chains paid.  This is just one example as to how a supposedly ‘good’ idea can turn out ‘bad’.

What is that old saying?  “The road to ruin is paved with good intentions”!!

This so called walmart bill will just be taken up the ladder and eventually get rejected by the Supreme court as being anti american and anti constitutional. All walmart has to say is the law is discrimatory towards them and if the law is good for them, then it should be good for all businesses in the state. If that happens, then all the mom and pop stores will be gone and walmart will have more of a dominance in the state. Also, they will just move their distribution center they were planning on building in the state to a neighboring state and take the 1000+ jobs with it. ( 600+ employees at the dc and then over 400+ truck driver jobs that pay better.) So, instead of adding those jobs to the number of employed in the state, collecting more tax dollars, they will just add more to the unemployement rate. And the walmart employees will probably take a pay cut, since walmart will have to pay more towards health insurance. The more you think about this dumb law, it makes sense why the union pay the representatives to vote for it. It strictly anti business and overall it will hurt more the people that it was suppose to help..

The phrase, as I’ve heard it, is “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

I’ll honestly say, many who fight Wal-Mart have GREAT intentions. But they will think they are living in hell when they wake up one day and realize where this kind of policy has led them. bad health insurance will be their last problem when they can’t find enough bread to feed their children.

Fair shair health care? catchy...just the phrase a corrupt and angry union lobbyist and his politician need. And these politcians claim they care about those with bad health care??? if they care so much why are they so upset about forking out a few extra dollars in their own taxes to pay for the people they claim to protect? FAIR health care sounds like they are trying to make it fair for everyone, but in reality, they just want Wal-Mart to pay for their socialist health care programs. wouldn’t it be more “fair” if everyone in Maryland paid a little for the health care crisis? but I’ll stop with that thought because I’m starting to sound like and advocate for social health care.

FAIR would be staying out of Wal-Mart’s business. stay out or wake up in the hell your creating.

I feel like I’m reading a rush limbaugh transcript....keep going with those talking points!!!!

Sandra Darling go take your pill then come back and have an intelligent conversation.

I just don’t understand why if this bill is good for walmart it shouldn’t be good for all the businesses. Seams even if they were to exclude the “small businesses” like some government programs do the state would still be better off if they included someone besides just walmart. Heck look at Target, Kmart, Lowes, Home depot, and all the other chain stores, not to mention the fast food restraunts. It’s just illogical to spend all this time on a bill that is only going to effect one company. If your really looking to make a dent in the health care problem in the state it would just make more sence.

Ho hum. What a thing to get up in arms about. Someone gets hurt stocking WM shelves so let the state pay for his health care. Right. WM gets the benefit of the individuals labor the state gets the benefit of the individuals pain. It’s long overdue but still has to be done. On the proposed $1 minimum wage hike---if the good people of Maryland are for it what business is it of the good people of West Viriginia, Utah, Arkansas, Pennsylvania and Mississippi? Really especially you Nick! who would lecture us that this country is meant to be a republic and not a democracy. Couldn’t we see this as a Sovereign State of our Union exercising its rights in an independent manner in much the same way as the original founders of this country meant them to? And do you actually think that it’s going to wreck their economy and put everyone out of work. Well WM might as well pack their suitcases and get out now. You know that’s not going to happen. So do I. So why all this hysteria?

Larry,
It’s true, the economy won’t be ruined today, tomorrow, or a year from now. But we need to have more forsight than a few years down the road. A broader timeline shows what these types of policies lead to.

It may not be my business what Maryland does, but there are several other politicians in many other states that are following Maryland’s bad example on this exact subject.

This is leading us down a path where government is more powerful than it was designed to be in this country. If we let private business incentives consistently influence politics (whether its Wal-Mart’s doing or the UFCW), even if it’s in the interest of the “public good,” we will be led to many more problems than we now have. 

The Great Depression is a great example of how uninformed government officials, in the interest of “public good” do more damage than imaginable. Capitalism doesn’t mix well with high levels of government intervention.

Milton Friedman, the Nobel Prize winning economist, wrote in his book: “The view that government’s role is to serve as an umpire to prevent individuals from coercing one another was replaced by the view that governments role is to serve as a parent charged with the duty of coercing some to aid others.” (Free to Choose, Introduction.)

Maryland is a perfect example that echoes Friedman’s worry, and the results will not be a healthier economy, but the “opposite” (in miltons words) of what these “good intentions” proport.

Larry

I am all for states’ rights and America as a Republic but I don’t think the Founders ever intended for government to tell business people how to run their business and what to pay their employees.

This 10,000 employee law is illegal and will be shot down. What I mean is, the courts will rule that Wal-Mart and other large employers are being denied equal protection. In other words, this law places an undue burden on certain companies and is, therefore, illegal.

As for minimum wage, don’t get me started. The market and one’s skills, not some bureaucrat, should dictate wages. Why would a small business owner hire a group of teenagers if he is now forced to pay more for their work? He may hire 3 teenagers at $5.15 but he may only hire 2 at $6.15. Now, you’ve eliminated 1 job and cost the business owner more. He is not paying more because his employees suddenly added more value.

Another thing to remember is that most states are surronded by other states. If businesses along the border are forced to pay $1 to $2 an hour more than businesses in another state, but 1 mile away, who do you think is going to have the lower cost? Who will be more competitive? Government should not dictate what you pay your employees. If people have no skills and are willing to work for $3 an hour, why shouldn’t they? Requiring $5.15 an hour now only opens the door to $20 an hour down the road. The first mistake was allowing government to control wages at all.

Finally, brilliant people like Alan Greenspan, Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and Jack Welch have all said that Wal-Mart has a net contribution effect of billions of dollars each year. Buffett and Greenspan both agree that, even assuming Wal-Mart is guilty of all the freeloading and job crushing of which they are accused, their net contribution to our economy still exceeds $24 billion per year. It is very hard to argue with the numbers.

You can complain about Wal-Mart as you like and that is fine. Just remember how much they inject into our economy.

The proposal of any new law or regulation which comes from the Masters [businessmen], ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it.
- Adam Smith, the Wealth of Nations

(one of his many frequently ignored statements in favor of labor organising and cautioning against big business and monopoly)

Here’s two more:

No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable. It is but equity, besides, that they who feed, clothe and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labour as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed and lodged.

It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expence, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion.

And one for why we have Unions:
It is not, however, difficult to foresee which of the two parties must, upon all ordinary occasions, have the advantage in the dispute, and force the other into a compliance with their terms. The masters, being fewer in number, can combine much more easily; and the law, besides, authorises, or at least does not prohibit their combinations, while it prohibits those of the workmen. We have no acts of parliament against combining to lower the price of work; but many against combining to raise it. In all such disputes the masters can hold out much longer.

The minimum wage in Washington state is $7.75 an hour, yet somehow we are not in the midst of a deep depression...hmmm.  And somehow all of our employers haven’t moved across the state line, even in the border cities where it would be easy to do so, like Spokane and Vancouver (near Portland).  Hmmm...guess a rise in the minimum wage isn’t as bad as everyone thinks.

Factchecker

You cannot quantify the number of jobs that were not CREATED because of an increase in the minimum wage. There is no government number that says “X number of jobs were not filled due to the increase in the minimum wage”. Employers will not come out and say they refused to hire more people due to the increase but they will certainly not hire 4 if 3 will do. I have yet to see a federal table that explains how many jobs are lost because of the minimum wage. I work in an area where 3 states are within 15 minutes of each other and there truly are comptetive issues with regard to taxes, workers comp and wages. It is very real.

Adam Smith, you are mistaken. Workers are not prohibited from joining each other in an association. Companies ARE. Companies can join associations that lobby Congress for handouts, such as the Steel Caucus but they cannot get together for business purposes. What I mean is, GM, Ford and Chrysler cannot join up to negotiate a UAW contract as a group. They cannot combine to set prices together. That is collusion and restraint of trade and the companies would be prosecuted. In reality, we should have equality. Either workers should not be allowed to form unions or both companies and workers should be permitted to associate for the purpose of financial advancement.

As you say Ellis-Nick companies will not hire 4 when 3 will do. That’s true. And that will apply to whether they (the three) are making $1 an hour more or not. From a personal standpoint on the subject of the nation as a republic or a democracy a strict dogmatic reading of what the founders meant is somewhat absurd (but you get this holier than thou argument all the time) as they argued for years over all kinds of vagaries. Nobody went away from that final signing without feeling a little bit compromised.  So let the people speak. The government is supposed to be theirs. And in Maryland if their represenatives don’t please them on this issue let the people have long memories (something that is lacking in this two party population IMO) and vote them out of office and elect new representatives that will do what they want them to.

Ellis,

You’re right that the number of jobs not CREATED cannot be quantified.  But, we can quantify the amount of money paid out to people because of a rise in the minimum wage AND we can quantify unemployment.  And, for some reason, Washington’s unemployment has not significantly changed (but has actually gone down some) since the increase, but the amount of money paid out has significantly gone up.  Hmmm...weird.  Also, the state’s population continues to expand due to migrants from other states, not fall or just increase from high birth rates, as is the case in several states that still have the $5.15 minimum wage.  So, can you tell me, is it out of the realm of possibility that maybe the state has drawn more people to the state precisely because of a higher minimum wage?

It was also very humorous to see you say that a DIRECT QUOTE from “The Wealth of Nations”, by Adam Smith, the father of modern capitalism, was wrong.  VEEERY humorous.

Fackchecker wrote:

“ The minimum wage in Washington state is $7.75 an hour, “

Even with the minimum wage at $7.75 an hour, Wal-Mart still pays almost $2.00 an hour (average) over that minimum wage.

Nice spin, Robs.

I’m sure that because of the minimum wage being higher in Washington, their average wage is higher than 9.68, which is what we’re aiming for.  I guess you agree with what we’re trying to do then, eh?

Not too many Walmarts in the Puget Sound area though, because people know that they can get paid more at a Starbucks. (and get some benefits)

Two things spinchecker…

This is how everything gets screwed up with the facts. Just because Washington has a minimum wage higher then the average doesn’t mean walmart pays anymore then the average of 9.68.  Second, walmart is just starting to move into the west, due to demand from out west. We just opened a new food distribution center in Washington and give it a couple years and there will be just as many walmart supercenters as everywhere else…

Steve,

Walmart is not “just starting to move out west”.  While it is true that Walmart does not have as many Supercenters in Caifornia, Washington, and Oregon, that is due to a number of factors, not because of “demand just starting”.  Walmart has had stores in these states for more than 15 years.

Trust me though, there will NOT be “as many walmart supercenters as everywhere else” simply because there is organized resistance to Walmart in the major metro areas of LA, the Bay Area, Portland, and Seattle that does not exist in many places.  I will be astonished if Walmart EVER gets a store in San Francisco, and Seattle is nearly as out of reach.

And, I was not saying that I had proof that Walmart’s average wage in Washington is higher than 9.68, but I would ASSUME and certainly HOPE that it is higher if Walmart is forced to hire people at at least 7.75.  If Walmart’s wage is lower than the national average, then the Washington employees are certainly NOT getting the same rewards for their work that workers in other areas are - is that what you think is happening?

To Whom it May Concern:

San Francisco may never have a walwart but right across the bridge in oakland they opened one about 6 months ago. i believe nearly 6000 people showed up for about 100 jobs when they held open interviews. yes i know oakland has high unemployment but that was disgusting. i am curious what they were offering for pay since CA minimum wage is pretty high.
sorry to break the bad news to all
ATH

Wow Adam Smith was extremely aware of the problems. Too bad the neo-cons, I mean (masters) will never care about the servant class. At least until they’ve pissed us off and it’s too late. The meek shall inherit the earth and the seed of the serpent will be crushed. Babylon will soon fall.

I’m sure that because of the minimum wage being higher in Washington, their average wage is higher than 9.68, which is what we’re aiming for. I guess you agree with what we’re trying to do then, eh?
Spinchecker in Arkansas

This is all well and good spinchecker but do you have any evidence that the average walmart employee is making 2 dollars more then the 9.68 average for walmart employees? Or does the national average include Washington in the average? When they figure out the average they pay everyone in the company that includes the high and low states as well.

By the way walmart watch you will have a lot of IP adresses to block befor you can keep me from posting, I have friends all over the country.

Lori, you said this:

“This is all well and good spinchecker but do you have any evidence that the average walmart employee is making 2 dollars more then the 9.68 average for walmart employees? Or does the national average include Washington in the average? When they figure out the average they pay everyone in the company that includes the high and low states as well. “

So, what you are basically saying is that Walmart employees in other places where the minimum wage is lower earn even LESS than 9.68 on average.  That just proves my point even more.

The fair share health care bill sounds like a great idea to improve health insurance for many individuals.