Underpaid Walmart workers cost taxpayers $6.2 billion a year!

Meanwhile, the six Walton heirs are worth about $150 billion.  And Walmart earns $13.5 billion a year on food-stamp sales.

Yep, that's my country.

Check out the full report or the executive summary.

Walmart On Tax Day: How Taxpayers Subsidize America's Biggest Employer and Richest Family

By Americans for Tax Fairness

April 2014

URL: http://www.americansfortaxfairness.org/walmart-on-tax-day/

Reich: 2013 saw huge wealth redistribution

Trickle-down economic theory vs. trickle-up economic fact.

I can't say it any better than this. Read the whole thing and get back to me with any questions!

The Year of the Great Redistribution

By Robert Reich

January 5, 2014 | Huffington Post

One of the worst epithets that can be leveled at a politician these days is to call him a "redistributionist." Yet 2013 marked one of the biggest redistributions in recent American history. It was a redistribution upward, from average working people to the owners of America.

The stock market ended 2013 at an all-time high -- giving stockholders their biggest annual gain in almost two decades. Most Americans didn't share in those gains, however, because most people haven't been able to save enough to invest in the stock market. More than two-thirds of Americans live from paycheck to paycheck.

Even if you include the value of IRA's, most shares of stock are owned by the very wealthy. The richest 1 percent of Americans owns 35 percent of the value of American-owned shares. The richest 10 percent owns over 80 percent. So in the bull market of 2013, America's rich hit the jackpot.

What does this have to do with redistribution? Some might argue the stock market is just a giant casino. Since it's owned mostly by the wealthy, a rise in stock prices simply reflects a transfer of wealth from some of the rich (who cashed in their shares too early) to others of the rich (who bought shares early enough and held on to them long enough to reap the big gains).

But this neglects the fact that stock prices track corporate profits. The relationship isn't exact, and price-earnings ratios move up and down in the short term. Yet over the slightly longer term, share prices do correlate with profits. And 2013 was a banner year for profits.

Where did those profits come from? Here's where redistribution comes in. American corporations didn't make most of their money from increased sales (although their foreign sales did increase). They made their big bucks mostly by reducing their costs -- especially their biggest single cost: wages.

They push wages down because most workers no longer have any bargaining power when it comes to determining pay. The continuing high rate of unemployment -- including a record number of long-term jobless, and a large number who have given up looking for work altogether -- has allowed employers to set the terms.

For years, the bargaining power of American workers has also been eroding due to ever-more efficient means of outsourcing abroad, new computer software that can replace almost any routine job, and an ongoing shift of full-time to part-time and contract work. And unions have been decimated. In the 1950s, over a third of private-sector workers were members of labor unions. Now, fewer than 7 percent are unionized.

All this helps explain why corporate profits have been increasing throughout this recovery (they grew over 18 percent in 2013 alone) while wages have been dropping. Corporate earnings now represent the largest share of the gross domestic product -- and wages the smallest share of GDP -- than at any time since records have been kept.

Hence, the Great Redistribution.

Some might say this doesn't really amount to a "redistribution" as we normally define that term, because government isn't redistributing anything. By this view, the declining wages, higher profits, and the surging bull market simply reflect the workings of the free market.

But this overlooks the fact that government sets the rules of the game. Federal and state budgets have been cut, for example -- thereby reducing overall demand and keeping unemployment higher than otherwise. Congress has repeatedly rejected tax incentives designed to encourage more hiring. States have adopted "right-to-work" laws that undercut unions. And so on.

If all this weren't enough, the tax system is rigged in favor of the owners of wealth, and against people whose income comes from wages. Wealth is taxed at a lower rate than labor.

Capital gains, dividends, and debt all get favorable treatment in the tax code - which is why Mitt Romney, Warren Buffet, and other billionaires and multimillionaires continue to pay around 12 percent of their income in taxes each year, while most of the rest of us pay at least twice that rate.

Among the biggest winners are top executives and Wall Street traders whose year-end bonuses are tied to the stock market, and hedge-fund and private-equity managers whose special "carried interest" tax loophole allows their income to be treated as capital gains. The wild bull market of 2013 has given them all fabulous after-tax windfalls.

America has been redistributing upward for some time -- after all, "trickle-down" economics turned out to be trickle up -- but we outdid ourselves in 2013. At a time of record inequality and decreasing mobility, America conducted a Great Redistribution upward.

Eskrow: Where did U.S. wages go?

Here's Eskrow's key observation, one that you cannot even make nowadays in America without being accused of a socialist bent [emphasis mine]:

We don't have a problem of inadequate wealth. The problem is inadequate wealth distribution. For 99 percent of Americans, wage growth has lagged significantly behind increases in productivity. As the authors [of the briefing paper "A Decade of Flat Wages"] note, this is true "regardless of occupation, gender, race/ethnicity, or education level." Since the Great Recession productivity has grown by 7.7 percent, while wages have actually fallen for the bottom 70 percent of earners.

[...] Between 2001 and 2012 productivity grew by 22.2 percent, while wages grew only 0.8 percent. 

My Republican friends, take special note of the phrase, "...regardless of occupation, gender, race/ethnicity or education level."  This phrase should stifle your knee-jerk reactions to blame those other people for America's economic woes.

So the facts are indisputable.  The question is: what are the causes? Eskrow points out a few:

A companion report from EPI, The State of Working America, 12th Edition, identifies some of the causes: Growing inequality. Policy inaction which eroded the value of the minimum wage. The weakening of employees' rights. Tax policy. Wall Street deregulation.

Other factors are left unmentioned, including problems in corporate governance and the distorting effect of changing executive compensation on corporate management practices.

Eskrow also blames another cause: "centrist" Democrats, aka 1990s-era Republicans who today call themselves Democrats: 

The word "centrist" is placed in quotation marks because polls show that their economic views are to the right of the American mainstream. On issues such as corporate taxation, Social Security benefits, and free trade, they stand to the right of most Americans -- and sometimes to the right of most registered Republicans.

Forget Republicans in Congress, they're nuts.  We need Democrats to be Democrats again, grow a spine, or get out of office.

Where Have America's Wages Gone?

By Richard (RJ) Eskrow

August 28, 2013 | Huffington Post

URL: http://huff.to/1ds6Asl

Conservative ire at DC's 'fair wage' law

Since my post, 'Meyerson: Cities resist the 'Wal-Mart-ization of work,' on July 17, I've been eagerly awaiting the decision of DC Mayor Vincent Gray whether or not to veto the DC City Council's "fair wage" law ("Large Retailer Accountability Act of 2013") that would require all big-box retailers, such as Wal-Mart, that earn more than $1 billion in yearly revenue with floor space of over 75,000 square feet to pay all employees a minimum wage of $12.50 an hour, up from $8.25.

According to WSWS, other major national retailers such as Home Depot, AutoZone, Macy’s, Lowe’s, Target and Walgreen’s have written an open letter to Mayor Gray, declaring the bill "misguided."

For what it's worth, the "liberal" Washington Post has also come out against the bill.  Let me repeat that: arming al-Qaeda affiliates in Syria?  For.  Paying working Americans a living wage?  Against.  That's the lib'rul media for ya'.  

We're still waiting on Mayor Gray's decision.  The tension is so thick you could cut it with a knife!  ... And why not cut it with a premium electric knife with rubberized handle (made in China) from Walmart for only $18.00?  (Hey, it's my way of balancing the scales, since I rip on Wal-Mart so often).

If you think it's just me, or just liberals, that see this DC law as a bellwether, think again. Witness all the conservative ink spilled on the subject:

• Washington's War On Wal-Mart Will Only Hurt The Poor, July 10, Investors Business Daily
• DC City Council Shake Down of Walmart Epic Fails, Ronald Bailey, July 10, Reason.com
• More on the DC city council’s hostility to Wal-Mart and DC consumers as an ‘economic death wish’, Mark J. Perry, July 10, AEI-Ideas
• EDITORIAL: Go away, jobs, July 10, Washington Times
• D.C. Snubs Hundreds of Wal-Mart Jobs With 'Living Wage' Law, Warner Todd Huston, July 12, Breitbart
• MSNBC's Smerconish Says that DC Mayor Gray Should Veto DC's 'Living Wage' Bill Targeting Walmart, Tom Blumer, July 12, NewsBusters
• Denying Wal-Mart hurts D.C. poor, Mona Charen, July 12, Chicago Sun-Times
• Surprise: D.C.’s “living wage” bill targets Wal-Mart, but could discourage other businesses, Mary Katharine Hame, July 12, Hotair
• DC’s Walmart Minimum Wage Law Would Hurt the Poor, Walter Russell Mead, July 12, The American Interest
• The Commissars of the People’s Republic of DC strike again, Judson Phillips, July 12, Tea Party Nation
• Why Mayor Gray should veto Wal-Mart bill, Deborah Simmons, July 14, Washington Times
• In Washington, D.C., Walmart Shrugs, July 14, Before It's News
• 5 Reasons Vince Gray Will Veto the “Living Wage” Bill, Harry Jaffe, July 15, Washingtonian
• Walmart shrugs in D.C., Doug Altner, July 17, Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights
• Wal-Mart's D.C. wage battle: A shortsighted skirmish, Scott Olster, July 18, Fortune/CNN
• Blocking Walmart From Washington, D.C. Would Hurt Poor, Star Parker, July 20, Townhall
• MSNBC's Brzezinski Befuddled that D.C. Communities Want Walmart Jobs, Andrew Lautz, July 22, NewsBusters
• Minimum wage for thee, but not for me, Dustin Siggins, July 22, Tea Party Patriots
• The DC City Council vs. Walmart, Rush Limbaugh, July 23
• “Gray’s Dichotomy”: DC Mayor must decide this week to veto anti-Walmart “living wage bill”, Gawken, July 29, RedState

If all these right-wingers think that DC's living wage law is a terrible idea, then it must be good!  

Seriously though, anybody who knows, knows that where Wal-Mart goes, wages go down across the board. Is that what DC really needs?  A line has to be drawn somewhere, and only the DC City Council has the authority to draw it.  

In the absence of action by the states and federal government on raising the minimum wage, which should be at least $10.59 today, only cities can take action. That's what DC is doing. That's federalism in action. Funny that pro-fedreralist conservatives are so up in arms about it.

There's also this stupid debate about who needs who more: DC or Wal-Mart?  Of course Wal-Mart needs DC, why else would they be opening 3 stores and planning 3 more?  Wal-Mart is not in the charity business.  

I lived in SE DC for two years, so I know that Washington, DC does not need cheaper toasters; it needs more jobs that pay a living wage.  Wal-Mart will not only offer poverty wages, it will depress wages at its competitors and across the District, making Washington poorer. 

Let's hope Mayor Gray has a big brass sack!

UPDATE (01.08.2013): Mayor Gray says he hasn't made a decision yet, and hasn't even been presented formally with the bill by the City Council: "D.C. minimum wage bill: Vincent Gray still undecided on signing or veto."

How Chinese and U.S. labor are alike

And as fellow WaPo columnist E.J. Dionne pointed out: 

... the way Gov. Rick Snyder (R) and the Republican Michigan Legislature rushed right-to-work through a lame-duck session was insidious. The anti-union crowd waited until after the election to pass it. Snyder had avoided taking a stand on right-to-work until just last week, when he miraculously discovered that it would be a first-rate economic development measure. The law was included as part of an appropriations bill to make it much harder for voters to challenge it in a referendum.

As we all know, U.S. wages have been stagnant in real terms since the 1970s. And this freeze in workers' wages corresponds suspiciously to the decline in power of labor unions. Meanwhile, U.S. workers' productivity has gone up considerably, along with stock prices and corporate profits, which hit an all-time high under President Obama. This is the very definition of redistribution of wealth, folks -- from the pockets of workers to managers and shareholders.

The Lansing-Beijing connection

By Harold Myerson

December 11, 2012 | Washington Post

China has a problem: rising inequality. The gap between profits and wages is soaring. Although elements of the government have sought to boost workers’ incomes, they have been thwarted by major companies and banks “that don’t want to give more profit to the country and let the government distribute it,” Qi Jingmei, a research fellow for a government think tank, told the Wall Street Journal.

Of course, if China permitted the establishment of unions, wages would rise. But for fundamentally political reasons — independent unions would undermine the Communist Party’s authority — unions are out of the question.

Meanwhile, the United States also has a problem of a rising gap between profits and wages. The stagnation of wages has become an accepted fact across the political spectrum; conservative columnists such as Michael Gerson and David Brooks have acknowledged that workers’ incomes seem to be stuck.

What conservatives haven’t acknowledged, and what even most liberal commentators fail to appreciate, is how central the collapse of collective bargaining is to American workers’ inability to win themselves a raise. Yes, globalizing and mechanizing jobs has cut into the livelihoods of millions of U.S. workers, but that is far from the whole story. Roughly 100 million of the nation’s 143 million employed workers have jobs that can’t be shipped abroad, that aren’t in competition with steel workers in Sao Paulo or iPod assemblers in Shenzhen. Sales clerks, waiters, librarians and carpenters all utilize technology in their jobs, but not to the point that they’ve become dispensable.

Yet while they can’t be dispensed with, neither can they bargain for a raise. Today fewer than 7 percent of private-sector workers are union members. That figure may shrink a little more with new “right to work” laws in Michigan — the propagandistic term for statutes that allow workers to benefit from union contracts without having to pay union dues.

Defenders of right-to-work laws argue that they improve a state’s economy by creating more jobs. But an exhaustive study by economist Lonnie K. Stevans of Hofstra University found that states that have enacted such laws reported no increase in business start-ups or rates of employment.Wages and personal income are lower in those states than in those without such laws, Stevans concluded, though proprietors’ incomes are higher. In short, right-to-work laws simply redistribute income from workers to owners.

Why, then, are such laws being enacted? The gap between U.S. capital income and labor income hasn’t been this great since before the New Deal; why widen it still more? The answer, in Lansing no less than in Beijing, is political. The Republicans who took control of the Michigan statehouse in 2010 understand that Democrats’ foot soldiers come disproportionately from labor. GOP efforts to reduce labor’s clout help Republicans politically far more than they help any Michigan-based businesses or local governments. (The legislation, which Gov. Rick Snyder (R) signed into law Tuesday evening, establishes right-to-work requirements for the public sector, too.)

Those who doubt that the intent of Michigan’s laws is more political than economic should consider the two kinds of unions exempted from its reach: police and firefighter unions. Their contracts are among the costliest that local governments confront: Police and firefighters generally (and rightly) retire earlier than do other public employees, with relatively generous pension benefits. But in Michigan, police and firefighter unions often endorse Republicans. Shrinking their treasuries and political power by subjecting them to right-to-work strictures would only damage Republicans’ electoral prospects (and may well play poorly to voters).

With Snyder’s signature, Michigan becomes the second state in the once-heavily unionized, industrial Midwest to adopt such a statute; hitherto, such laws had largely been confined to states in the South, the Plains and the Mountain West. The United Auto Workers (UAW) was once the colossus of Michigan politics, but the union’s membership has shrunk to 381,000 — roughly one-quarter of its size 35 years ago — a casualty of globalization and the legal and cultural obstacles the UAW has encountered to organizing new members.

Michigan Republicans have seen a chance to weaken the UAW and labor’s power at election time. Doing so further diminishes the number of workers who can bargain for a raise. It’s nice that conservatives are finally acknowledging that workers’ incomes are stagnating. But workers don’t get raises if they can’t bargain collectively, and all the hand-wringing about our rising rates of inequality will be so much empty rhetoric unless we insist — in Lansing and Beijing — on workers’ right to form powerful unions.

Canada & U.S. in 'race to the bottom'

This is the "race to the bottom" in action, folks. Guess what? Canada's not going to win it; neither will we. That's why it's a fool's game; we shouldn't play it. Germany has found a better way.

Cheap U.S. Labor Used As Leverage To Lower Canadian Workers' Wages

By Alexander Eichler

January 6, 2012 | Huffington Post

URL: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/06/us-cheap-labor_n_1189428.html

M. Moore (not him, the WNBA star): Labor deserves fair pay

This is one of the best summaries of fair pay and the role of unions which I have read, and it's from a female basketball player of all people. I am not a fan of the WNBA or any other women's sport that I can think of, but... when she's right, she's right.

And although she didn't say it I will: college athletes who make $ millions for their schools deserve some kind of monetary compensation, even if it's deferred or held in trust, not just a "free education."


WNBA's Maya Moore Speaks about Pay, Labor and Going Pro (EXCLUSIVE)
By Laura Gottesdiener
May 12, 2011 | Huffington Post

[...]

Professional sports, like any business, seek to maximize profits. As always, there are an infinite number of ways to cut costs and increase profits, yet, as always, it's labor that takes the cut. Whether you're in Wisconsin, the NFL or the NBA, labor gets the (sharp) spikey end of the stick.

Whether you're a player in the WNBA or NFL or a farm worker, the fundamental issue is the same: Workers want to be paid fairly for their labors. I want to be paid fairly for my work. Because so many of the salaries in professional sports are higher than the average working American's, athletes are seen as out of touch and prima donnas when our unions ask for more. But when we are painted as greedy and mercenary, as with any message, we must look behind the curtain at who is controlling that perception.

Owners have made players "the bad guys." This isn't taxpayer money. It's discretionary money that individuals choose to spend to come and watch players play and be entertained. It's not as if better salaries and benefits take money out of our schools. The only thing players' wages affect is owners' bottom line. Like agricultural workers, our jobs are arduous and have long-term effects on our bodies. Like agricultural workers, not every athlete is getting rich off his or her labor: Some MLS soccer players take make $32,000 a year. I have colleagues in the WNBA making $36,570.

Some of us do make a lot -- and those are the names you hear touted in newspapers and on TV -- but many athletes will labor in obscurity until they are no longer strong enough, fast enough, young enough to keep up. The average pro-athlete is as disposable to management as the average farm worker. Yes, we get paid better and for that, there is no lack of gratitude, but the fundamental unfairness still stings.

The question to ask -- across all these labor disputes -- is: How much of the profits of their labor do laborers deserve to earn? Unsurprisingly, owners and laborers fall on different sides of this issue, and I find myself empathizing with any union that seeks safer, healthier and fairer working conditions for its members. I realize that as a player in the WNBA, I am among the most privileged union members and that my working conditions are enviable. I am grateful for that. But just because I'm blessed doesn't mean that I can forget the plight of my fellow laborers, hardworking athletes and non-athletes alike.

The labor negotiations between players and owners, between unions and management, is a negotiation going on across the country and across the world. The specifics are different, but the argument is the same. We, laborers, believe we deserve a fair share of the profits that are made off of our efforts.

I hope, as negotiations continue to unfold between players' unions and management, that those watching will connect what is happening in pro sports to what is happening across the country. As the economy contracts and profits shrink, there appears an organized and systematic attack against labor, whether the attack is against auto workers or basketball players. The size of the salary may be different but the principle is the same: everyone deserves to be paid a fair percentage of the profits that are made off our labor.