It's getting so you can't throw a spitball without hitting a Wal-Mart, let alone fly a plane.

Nice piece.

You are looking at the wrong numbers. Retail is a very wide field. You're comparing Wallmart's wages to Neiman Marcus'. The correct comparison is to other low-end retail, your neighborhood bodega , for example. When Wallmart hires and it gets applicant lines out the door, it's a certainty that they are paying more then the competition.

Thanks, Josh, for your comments. It's great to have you on the DMIBlog. Your point is well-taken. Here's what I see in the data taken from the Brennan Center:

Wal-Mart's national average for earnings for all employees is $19,226. This is less than the national average for all large retailers, less than the average for all employees at supermarkets, less than the average of employees at other wholesale clubs and supercenters, and, of course, way less than all private employees.

But my question for you is: does it matter?

If the worker at the neighborhood bodega is also being paid a wage that qualifies him automatically for food stamps, and has no health insurance, does that somehow excuse Wal-Mart?

The lines out the door issue is one that is important, but not because it indicates that Wal-Mart's wages are great. But because it indicates how desperate people are for jobs -- any jobs.

We could easily have had this conversation 60 years ago about any jobs in construction or mines. Look at that line - these jobs, which paid below poverty wages with no safety protections, must be awesome! In fact, they weren't awesome, and we recognized this as a country, and through the collaboration of the private sector and labor, we turned those jobs into good jobs that could support families. It didn't happen automatically.

We can do the same with jobs in retail, if we want to. But we won't if we spend all of our time arguing what is right in front of our faces.

Andrea undercuts Josh's point with her initial statistics, but then closes her comment with a pro-labor, quasi-socialist rant, which is just my ideology vs your ideology, end of discussion. That is more what we would expect from an activist -- a speech -- than a think tank, from whom we want cutting edge data and novel approaches. Don't we have enough people thinking speeches solve problems these days?

Think tanks and activists. If you're looking for a think tank that views those worlds as entirely separate, you've got the wrong one. We're specifically about changing the conversation by changing who participates in it, which is why our fellows are not elite Ivory Tower folks but grassroots organizers and advocates.

Now on your point about closing with a speech. Perhaps I did get carried away. But the fact remains that too many in our country seem to have forgotten that what we consider to be good jobs today weren't always. That is a direct result of the impact of the labor movement in this country. I'm glad to point you to more on this if you're interested.

This isn't an ideological argument, it's an econommics one. Turning bad jobs into good ones was not only good for those workers, but it grew a middle class that provided the economic stability for this country.

With the explosion of service sector and retail, we now need to figure out how to turn those bad jobs into good jobs. But the first step is to acknowledge the problem.

Rightmight - was your argument against that contention just stylistic, or also on the substance?

If you want quasi-Socialism and anti-capitalism, check out the waves of sweetheart deals and tax abatements Wal-Mart hunts from local governments:

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20051109/walmarts_tax_on_us.php

The tax burden Wal-Mart puts on Americans only begins with lack of employee healthcare. We need to bring back the idea of cutting corporate welfare. Ralph Nader wrote an excellent booklet in 1999, here's a selection:

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Nader/CutCorpWelfare_Nader.html

Andrea, to your first point:

Again, you're not making a fair comparison. Wallmart has one of the largest %'s of part time employees. You need to convert the #'s to a 40hr week. Again, this is a low-end store and it's better to compare it to BJ's (comparable), Cost-Co(below), etc, etc. Also, think about what they replace. We're not talking about even a place like Kohls, but instead the small bodega stores that serve the poor today. I don't think anyone wants to pretend that those workers have a better deal. I think REPEc has some good data there that really does a proper break-down.

On another note, someone has to be the lowest payer. Not that Wallmart is by any measure the lowest payer, but someone has to be. You can never win this game of X pays less then everyone else.

In terms of implementation, let's pretend that you could force them to raise their wages. Any wage increase will be passed on to consumers. They have among the tightest margins in the industry. You'd essentially be taxing the poor to support raising wages for a relatively small group of workers.

Certainly everyone here has the option themselves to personally send money to Wallmart workers. You could slip each one you see a $20. You could start a fund for Wallmart workers. Funny, I can't imagine many people contributing. IMHO, the call to the government to solve this is naive at best and disingenous at worst.

Lastly, for many people that Wallmart takes in, these are jobs that get them onto the job ladder. You have to consider the negative effects that laws like Davis-Beacon have had on minority employment. The higher you regulate wages, the less likely an employer is to take a risk and hire someone with less experience - especially a minority.

To your second point:

Few mainstream economist would agree. I think we could sit here for days discussing this, but I think that is done with (at least to econ and finance folks). Ultimately, in a competitive economy, productivity leads wages and people need to get the skills to be more productive and to earn more. Greenspan has mentioned this many times in his testimony, yet simple matters like switching to merit pay for teachers - let alone vouchers - certainly progressive ideas - are idled.

JoshK:

Of course productivity growth leads to the creation of more wealth, which would allow for higher wages, but that doesn't necessarily mean that higher wages are always the result. Sometimes (and increasingly this has been the case in the last 30 years) virtually all the gains in productivity are paid out to top management, and stockholders, and not to the workers who are becoming more productive. For workers to claim their fair share of productivity gains they need unions as a vehicle to assert collective economic power. It it sounds like I'm saying that wages are set through a political process rather than just by market supply and demand, you're right. I am. That's why it was called "political economy" instead of just economics back when people were being more honest about this kind of thing.

"productivity"

Productivity gains pass through in one of two ways. One: Higher (real) wages. Two: Lower Costs.

Think about the bag of goods and services available to someone who worked in a coal mine after the "success" of unionization compared to now. It's not without a bit of irony that organization like Junior Leauge and Salvation Army no longer accect much in the way of clothes. My uncle who just passed away went through college in Wisconsin without a coat one year b/c he couldn't afford one. While there certainly is poverty today, you can't compare the level.

You also have to discern between shareholders and management receiving compensation. Shareholders are 50% or so of Americans. Anyone can become a shareholder. $30 can buy you a share of a company trust that will pay you a dividend for a very long time. and all of our 401K's / pensions / etc are banking on that. If shareholders do well, that opens the door for economy-wdie growth. Now, if management is taking a huge share of the money and it's not going to shareholders, then that is a huge corporate governance problem, which, IMHO, looms large here. If there was an issue that a "progressive" should be interested in, it's stirring up shareholder activity and making sure that corporate funds are either returned to the retirement accounts, or reinvested - both activities that help grow the economy.

A relatively minor problem with unionization is that has destroyed industries and jobs. Detaching wages - or any price - from supply and demand ultimately leads to a hard landing. Think of the countries where it has been tried. There are no sucesses to report.

A bigger problem with unionization is that it has forced many blacks into poverty. If you remember your union history, you will recall that the biggest issue of the day was black laborers willing to do a "white man's job" for less. The rise of industrialization brought black workers north who were then promptly shut out of job opportunities as unions and the "closed shop" were born. An excellent movie to see to familiarize yourself with this is "Liam", which is set in the 20's in England, where the threat posed by the Irish worker was similar to that posed by the southern negro.

To this day, teachers unions have devastated the function of public education. The upper middle and above increasingly chooses private schools while the poor are left with less and less ways to get a good education and to escape poverty. In NYC, teachers make now from between $35K and 90K. With the large benefit and pension package they receive, this number goes up to almost double. This pay is based on tenure and outisde classes taken. If we could hire teachers for 2/3 of that and use merit pay, imagine how students would benefit.

In the same way unions destroy schools, they have destroyed businesses. Think of who unions hurt and I don't think a person interested in the betterment of society in general can back them.

JoshK, the point about blacks and unions is particularly absurd. Like nearly every institution in America, unions used to be vehicles for racism. Today, like many institutions in America, some are still struggling to overcome that legacy. But today blacks are more likely to be union members (15.1 percent) than whites (12.2 percent). The median black union member made 23% more than the median black who was not a member of a union.

Unions were and are a tremendous force for the advancement of working people. Far greater, for example, than the stock market. Although close to half of Americans own *some* stock, the vast majority of us get the vast majority of our income from going to work every day. Stock market gains are concentrated at the top: let's not forget that the bottom 80% of Americans only own 10.7% of all stock market holdings.

Absurd? You are ignoring the history of unions completely. The impetus that drove them to form was to exclude low-wage competition from blacks. It's not an incidental part of the history of that period. I really suggest taking a look at that movie, they do a great job of showing the social forces of that period in play. Are you familiar with Henry Ford's $5/a day?

And that reason exists today. Yes, blacks have been able to (finally) enter unions in the last 20 years. And today, they again function to exclude non-union members from jobs. In high school, everyone knew someone who knew someone who could "get you into the union" so you can get one of those jobs. I can't imagine that anyone who aspires to help the poor would want to lock most of the poor out of the job market.

Consider the supply side. Imagine if the gas companies colluded and decided to raise prices together and hold the same price (as OPEC did until recently). You'd force a much higher price and less utilization as gas becomes more expensive. If US companies try that, the bosses go to jail. If you are wondering why you haven't met anyone from DeBeers at your local pizza joint, that is b/c they cannot come into this country because they have arrest warrants out on them for exactly this behaviour.

In the labor market, the same thing happens. Less labor is used and prices increase. In an economy where some labor is unionized and some isn't that effects a transfer of wealth from your non-unionized labor to your unionized labor. If everyone were to unionize then (if that wouldn't just destroy the economy as a whole) you would simply have inflation. Imagine everyone's salary doubling. You'd have twice as much money, but your pizza would cost twice as much.

As far as the distribution of stock ownership, I'm not sure why it's relevant who owns how much. Unless you want to play a mindless game of class-envy. The rich will always have more than everyone else - that's inherent in the deffinition of the word "rich". The key is that the primary and secondary stock market need to offer an opportunity for growth. That is what keeps the economy growing and drives the economic benefits we all enjoy.

On a side point, consider this. Everyone here is a computer user. Now imagine if GM built your computer. Or better yet, imagine if GM, pre non-union competition from Toyota and Honda built your computer.

So the main example to prove your point about blacks and the American labor movement is a movie set in the 20's in England? If you're intent on getting your history lessons from film, I'd recommend "The Killing Floor" a movie based true events that's actually about black union members in the United States in the nineteen-teens. The scene where every worker in the meatpacking plant folds their arms and stops working in solidarity with a black coworker is one of the most powerful images in cinema.

As for your statement that the distribution of wealth and power in our society only matters to those playing "a mindless game of class-envy" well, I'm not sure there is a way to constructively engage with that. I see the pursuit of a more just and equal society as one of the highest goals of civilization that has engaged some the greatest minds in history. You see it as a mindless game. I'm not sure we have anything else to talk about.

EVD,

The point of the movie is that it does a great job of showing society at the time and how it was disrupted first by industrialization and then by the influx of cheap labor. It's not a very political movie actually, but just a very good and very accurate depiction of the times. And, as people agitage against the entry of workers from China and other lower cost countries into the global job market, you can see echos of this past. The point isn't what is a more powerful image - I'm sure you can find many in film. The point is to show how society has reacted in the past to the threat of lower cost workers.

Distribution of wealth is both unimportant and uncontrollable. Take the richest people in America. Bill Gates is a perennial list topper. You could destroy Microsoft and wipe all of their software of off the planet. You could then go through the rest of the list. The Packard family has many members, but together they also add up into the same stratosphere. You'd destroy all of their wealth and all of their creations.

You would certainly restructure the holding of wealth in America, but, I can't really understand why you would want to do that.

The only relevant data is standard of living. Do people have access to food, medicine, shelter, etc? And what level of those items do those people have? Certainly, we have seen an incredible increase in the standard of living accross the board. Remember thrity years ago when clothing was expensive and few people had much of it? Is it perfect, no, but that is where a progessive should work to make an impact.

I think you're not understanding the nominal nature of wealth and currency. The fact that Bill Gates has more chips that you and I shouldn't distract from the fact that anyone here can discuss movies that they have seen when few people had the privilege of reading a book fifty years ago should be much more important.

At the end of the day, if you want to support the poor you cannot also support unions. Unions decrease the amount of jobs available, block out large groups from new jobs (see France), hold back increases in productivity that benefit all, and raise prices across the board. You might as well say that you support womens' rights and you also support the right of men to knock down a case of beer and set their wives straight with a bat.