Bernie Sanders rips Walmart: Why should taxpayers subsidize ‘starvation wages’?

[DonViejo]

Source: Raw Story



By Travis Gettys
Friday, January 17, 2014 12:28 EST

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) demanded that a panel of experts justify why America’s shrinking middle class should continue to subsidize the nation’s wealthiest family in a heated exchange Thursday during a congressional panel.

The Senate’s lone independent pointed out during the panel on income inequality that more Americans were currently living in poverty than at any point in the nation’s history as the top 1 percent siphoned off 95 percent of all income generated between 2009 and 2012.

“Does anyone on that panel … think that that makes moral sense or economic sense?” Sanders asked. “Does anybody think it makes moral or economic sense that one family, the Walton family, owns more wealth than the bottom 40 percent of the American people?”


He continued his attack on the family that founded Walmart, which drew a formal complaint Wednesday from the National Labor Relations Board accusing the retailer of illegally threatening or punishing employees who considered taking part in strikes to protest working conditions.

“The Walton family is the wealthiest family in America,” Sanders said. “Does anybody on the panel think that they need significant welfare help? And yet it turns out that they are the largest recipient of welfare in America.”

He accused the retailer of paying its employees “starvation wages,” which in turn forced working families into taxpayer-funded social welfare programs to help pay for their medical care, food and housing.

“Do you think the Walton family, worth a hundred billion dollars, is in need of welfare from the middle class of this country, or do you think maybe we should raise the minimum wage so that those workers can earn a living wage and not have to get Medicaid or food stamps?” Sanders asked the panel.

The first panelist, Scott Winship, of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, offered to answer an earlier question, but Sanders insisted that he justify why taxpayers should subsidize Walmart’s wages with welfare.

“I would not use the word welfare, I think it’s stigmatizing,” Winship said, adding that Walmart offered low prices to its customers.


The exchange turned testy, as Sanders continued to insist that Winship answer the question as he’d asked it.

“I think that we should not raise the wage above levels that’s going to cause Walmart to not hire their workers,” Winship said. “The only way that they’re able to have the prices, which benefit low-income people more than people up on the income distribution (scale), is by paying wages that are not as high as you or I might like.”

The next panelist, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, said he did not think taxpayers should subsidize any corporation that failed to pay its workers enough to survive.

“That is corporate welfare of the worst kind,” said Reich, a public policy professor at the University of California-Berkeley.

Reich added that Walmart, the nation’s largest private employer, paid its workers an average of $8.80 an hour. By comparison, he said, the nation’s largest employer in 1955 was General Motors, which paid workers an average of $37 an hour in today’s money.

Sanders next asked Aparna Mathur, American Enterprise Institute, to defend Walmart’s labor practices.

“I don’t think we should be subsidizing Walmart, but I think workers have a choice about where they want to work,” Mathur said. “If they’re choosing to work at Walmart, you know, that is their choice and we should not decide for them whether it’s a good choice.”

She defended the use of taxpayer-funded social welfare programs to boost the living conditions of working families.

“These are poverty programs that benefits go directly to workers, (and) if you think that they’re creating jobs and people are able to work and enough benefits to survive, then I think that’s a good thing,” Mathur said.

Melissa Kearney, of the Brookings Institute, echoed Mathur’s comments, pointing out that dozens of candidates applied for each available job when Walmart opened its first location in Washington, D.C.

“I think Walmart is a brilliant innovation and I have no beef with the Walton family,” Kearney said. “It would be great if people could move up the wage distribution faster at Walmart and aspire to management positions and better positions for themselves and their children.”

Watch this video of the panel discussion posted online by Bernie Sanders:

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/01/17/bernie-sanders-rips-walmart-why-should-taxpayers-subsidize-starvation-wages/

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Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/01/17/bernie-sanders-rips-walmart-why-should-taxpayers-subsidize-starvation-wages/

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Full article posted with permission

[valerief]

1. I dreamt of him last night. He was walking by, and I said, "Hi, Bernie!" That's all I can remember.

He's the best.

[msanthrope]

2. Good for Bernie Sanders! nt

[WillyT]

3. K & R !!!

[secondwind]

4. K&R for Bernie!

[ladywnch]

5. i LOVE IT.....

now, according to Mathur, we have a 'choice' to work at Walmart.... people make a choice to work for starvation wages.... I didn't realize that!

First they tell us, people are to lazy to work and need to take any job that is available (regardless of whether you can survive on the pay) or they get nothing.... then when it's pointed out that these jobs don't relieve the welfare system because they don't pay a living wage, they have the gall to say it's the worker's 'choice' to be in that position!!!!!

I think, feel, believe that everyone of these SOBs who espouse the BS that Walmart is a model of employment and people can live on minimum wage should be MADE TO LIVE on minimum wage for 1 year to prove their point. No funds from any other sources.....just the minimum wage job paycheck........and not a 40 hour minimum wage job paycheck, a real 30 - 32 hour a week paycheck like folks really get......(almost no one in minimum wage gets 40 hours these days)

When they can prove they can live on those wages for a year.....Then maybe I'll listen to what they have to say.

I know it's wrong, but I just want to slap people like these two twitts.....I wanna slap them back to the middle ages where they belong.

[airplaneman]

25. I was hoping we could slap them into non-existence - maybe a parallel universe. n/t.

[fasttense]

32. They have their lies down pat.

“The only way that they’re able to have the prices, which benefit low-income people more than people up on the income distribution (scale), is by paying wages that are not as high as you or I might like.”

That is a blatant lie.

There are 3 things that go into the price of a some crap sold by Wally world.

1. The wholesale price of the crap and facilities/infrastructure/transportation costs.

2. Profits and CEO pay.

3. Labor costs.

Lower any of those 3 things and the price of the crap goes down. They could decide to lower the huge CEO pay and their huge, huge profits thus lowering the price of the crap. Wal-Mart DOES NOT HAVE TO LOWER LABOR COSTS TO LOWER PRICES. It's a scam, a con, a manipulation to pretend that the only way for Wally World to make a profit is by lowering labor costs.

Just like the lie that workers have a choice of where to work. There are so few jobs that choice isn't anywhere in the mix. We still have an 11% unemployment rate in my county. You take what you can get. I know of only a handful of people who are currently working at their "Choice" job. When the federal government turns it's back on bailing out Detroit and all the retirees with pensions from the city, but of course bailing out the corporation in Detroit, none of us can honestly say we have a choice in what jobs we take. We take what ever crappy, shitty job a corporation wants to dump on you.

[abq e streeter]

6. Excellent point." If they’re choosing to work at Walmart, you know, that is their choice ...

I think workers have a choice about where they want to work,” Mathur said. “If they’re choosing to work at Walmart, you know, that is their choice and we should not decide for them whether it’s a good choice.”

Hmm, let's see,should I work for minimum wage at Walmart or be a Wall Street hedge fund manager? ...decisions, decisions..Yup. gotta go with Walmart...

[Half-Century Man]

7. "A choice of where they WANT to work"?

Are you high or just stupid?
So many jobs have moved outside of the country, that are record numbers of applicants for every single job.
If slashing the workers wages through outsourcing saved so much money; why hasn't the cost of goods and services gone down? All corporate america did was redirect the money from the ones who actually did the work, to the parasites on top. It has been the often touted "redistribution of wealth" from the start. It has been class warfare from the start.

[warrant46]

15. He's stupid---so stupid that drugs won't lower his I Q

He is just MOUTHING the talking points of his Corporate Masters

[Half-Century Man]

36. A concussion wouldn't effect his IQ

[raven mad]

38. Neither would

surgical removal of his brain.

[airplaneman]

27. Between banks, Wall Street, and Corporations - Most of the real economy is siphoned off.

[ArcticFox]

8. here's an idea

When my foreign-born wife came to live with me here, I had to promise to pay back the government for any welfare benefits she might use.

Why not say, if you want to do business here, and hire any employee, then you must reimburse the government for any government benefit the employee receives.

[Thinkingabout]

39. K & R

Plus pay a fine to cover overhead for the agencies doing the giving.

[Igel]

43. Keeping in mind what just happened in the last month.

Lots of people are suddenly getting a government subsidy that weren't before. Health insurance subsidies.

I suppose, given how Sanders is talking, that we all sort intended to subsidize Walmart, the independent store down the street, lots of municipal employees. Etc.

Not sure how that would work for the people on my street that hire yard maintenance folk.

Or the independent restaurant we went to yesterday for lunch.

It's not about the subsidies themselves. Otherwise we really would be insisting that every retailer, service provider, manufacturer come under the same regs. Instead, we only focus on a few big players, even as we say that most of the jobs in the US are provided by small and medium-sized players. The human psyche is a fascinating thing to ponder.

[Fumesucker]

9. Not everyone is cut out for management, not by a long shot

Including a bunch of people who currently hold management positions.

[ronnie624]

10. He stands head and shoulders

above every other national political leader. Anyone who does not support this man, is a fool, plain and simple.

[Kelvin Mace]

11. Here's a though on an adjustment to the tax code

ALL senior management compensation that exceeds 50 times the lowest paid employee's compensation (this includes deferred compensation) is NOT tax deductible. Why should the average taxpayer subsidize the fabulous wealth rained upon CEOs and their posse?

Also, all legal expenses a company pays to fight criminal/civil fines where such fines are found to be warranted, shall NOT be tax deductible. Why should the average taxpayer subsidize corporations illegal behavior?

If Exxon and BP want to create environmental disasters, then fight like mad to get the fines reduced, then their legal expenditures should not be deductible "expenses". If the fine stands, then is was justified. If it was justified, then it why should a company be permitted to deduct the expense of fighting a legal and correct fine.

Just my thoughts on the matter...

[thecrow]

33. I agree with you, Kelvin

[Tumbulu]

47. Great suggestions nt

[brett_jv]

12. Hilarious the hypocrisy of these AEI & Brookings people ...

In any OTHER context, when the subject of welfare, food stamps & similar 'entitlements' comes up, well then they're a 'bad thing'.

However, when put in THIS context, where the argument being made is to raise the minimum wage, which may slightly eat into the 1%'s fortunes, THEN ... why these programs are just fine and dandy, doing what they're meant to do, etc.

Socialize the costs, and privatize the profits ... that's their scam ... always has been.

[closeupready]

13. What I can't get: Hillary Clinton was on Walmart's Board of Directors

for how many years (7? 8? 9?), while Bill was governor of Arkansas. Not surprisingly in that light, she has long favored outsourcing of jobs.

I'd like to hear more from her about her thoughts on outsourcing, and why voters should give her gig with Walmart a pass, considering it in the light cast by Sanders here.

The issues regarding overtime and unequal pay for equal work are also concerns.

[dmosh42]

14. Our best Senator, bar none!

[NYtoBush-Drop Dead]

24. Bernie...

Great about going after them and why the US subsidizes these companies.... but what about the military, how ablaut paying the military a decent wage? What percentage of people in the military are on food stamps? What are WE Bernie? Are we WALMART????

[GeorgeGist]

16. Why should taxpayers subsidize ‘starvation wages’?

Because Reagan was the greatest ambassador ... for stupidity that the world has ever known.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

17. + a millionskillionbajillion. n/t

[daleanime]

18. K&R....

[AzDar]

19. Bernie!

[BlueinOhio]

20. Corporate welfare

I think the most troubling of the article was where they said Walmart workers should not be making enough to live on because Walmarts has cheap merchandise that they sell to low class citizens. So to continue their cheap prices they should not pay their employees. Yet Sam Walton did believe in paying he had it so employees received double pay on Sunday, my share ( that paid out large sums ) all things stopped after he died and the employees who fell under his pay were either fired or laid off.
Where ever the word freedom is you can be sure there is no freedom. They believe there is a freedom of choice, that is a false sense of freedom of the workers to choose to work somewhere else. Where I live there would be no choice. But I see Walmart as a traitor destroying America with one cheap chinese product at a time. Not to mention each store gets 250,000 returned by the taxpayer over losses. Who needs to actually sell anything.

[adirondacker]

23. Add to that, the majority of customers (non employees) are on some form of welfare. What a scam.

[juajen]

46. Yep, those were the days!

We were supporting "Made in USA" and "look for the Union Label" also. It was when Hillary was on the board, though I am not sure of the exact dates. I lived and worked in Little Rock in 1978 and 79. Her law firm was across the street from the one I worked for. Serving on that board during this time or earlier times was a good thing, because Walmart was a different company. Sam Walton was a wonderful man, who visited his stores to make sure they were doing the right thing by their customers and employees; also supporting unions and made in the USA.

It is wrong to compare apples to oranges. I might also add that there were many differences in the GOP of that time and now, as well as the Democratic Party.

[AllyCat]

21. Our City Council just "secretly" voted in a Wal-Mart in our town

After the voters have rejected it multiple times with huge turnouts at meetings urging their alders to vote "no", the Council closed the doors and essentially fast-tracked a Stupid Center after all. People are outraged. Wally World is asking for $5M in infrastructure improvements in the "TIF" district (it's a farm field) and one group now projects that WW will pay taxpayers back UP TO $230K for our effort. It will kill our downtown businesses, actually most of our businesses.

We are enraged.

[Ash_F]

22. Why is this man an independent he should be a Democrat... /nt

[abelenkpe]

26. “I would not use the word welfare, I think it’s stigmatizing,”

So, It's OK to stigmatize poor welfare recipients but not the obscenely wealthy welfare recipients?

[brett_jv]

29. That's not the point ...

The issue here is that the standard right-wing talking point is that 'welfare recipients' are all a bunch of unemployed slacker layabouts. They don't want the general public to consider that many (if not MOST) people who take welfare actually HAVE JOBS, many of them working hard to help enrich the 1% (i.e. Walmart Employees), because it f*cks up their propaganda line. They'd likely prefer that the common vernacular would develop some OTHER name for these underpaid people who receive government assistance ASIDE from 'people on Welfare'. Surprised the person speaking didn't offer a new name for such people, hoping it somehow catches on.

[abelenkpe]

30. True!

Most people on welfare and food stamps are working poor. And those programs have time limits so the idea that people are just slacking off while on these programs is just false. I thought that the article was referring to corporate welfare in the form of subsidies and tax breaks given to Wal Mart and that when underpaid workers need food stamps, medicaid and welfare to supplement their low wages that would also be welfare of a sort that Wal Mart, an insanely profitable company, benefits from.

[Scuba]

41. You nailed it brett_jv ...

[ChiciB1]

28. We So Need Many More People The Likes Of

Bernie Sanders. Unfortunately, they are few and far between. And what I find more often than not, it's been The Congressional Black Caucus who fight back much more so than so many whites in Congress. And also, the Latino representatives too.

I have no problem, as a white woman saying this simply because it's so VERY true. Shameful, but too many Dems don't measure up as they once did. I'm willing to compromise regarding my more "liberal" views, but it really burns me that too many Dems seem to cave so much.

What is also scary are all the people deciding not to run again. I understand why, but it DOES worry me a great deal. Repukes are ready and willing to sell their soul if it means getting another (R) elected, regardless if they agree with the main stream Repukes. THEY will back tea party types, and they also seem to be willing to back more left leaning Repukes too. The last being much more scarce.

Once again, kudos to Bernie, he's one of the best. So many times I've missed the Paul Wellstone types. But look what happened to him! And it happened on my birthday... I always have to add that on because it was such a downer for me!

[stg81]

31. glue this permanently to the front page

[underpants]

34. AEI (sort of) admits that poverty programs create jobs?!?!

WOW

[rurallib]

35. Lord if we could clone him and Warren

[heaven05]

37. those are some lame ass

Last edited Fri Jan 17, 2014, 09:00 PM - Edit history (1)

people defending Walmart(tons) and their poverty/slave wages. They are a large part of what's wrong with this country along with greed capitalism. Disgusting, willfully blind and hateful people.

[gwheezie]

40. People really don't have a choice about working at walmart

or fast food places when you cinsider the scam that "welfare to work" is, it provides a tax deduction for the company to pay wages so low that single moms continue to require tax payer support and not get enough skills to move to better jobs and a steady stream of workers so desperate to get their little bit of food stamps or rent subsidy they are forced to work at these jobs. Give me a break, what form of governmnet is it that sets it up so the working slob pays for the wealthy to get wealthier.

[Scuba]

42. Don't you wish all congress-critters fought this hard for you?

[CrispyQ]

44. Go Bernie!

“I would not use the word welfare, I think it’s stigmatizing,” Winship said, adding that Walmart offered low prices to its customers.

But it's OK to use that stigmatizing word in reference to poor people. What a flaming asshole.

[colsohlibgal]

45. Scum Of the Earth

WalMart would pay less if they could, all to get filthier rich. Trickle down indeed. I hope there is a special place in Hell, if there is such a place, for obscenely greedy people like them, pigs at the trough.

As I sign I have on my fridge says, end the wars (which cuts off the war profiteers), tax the rich, this isn't rocket science. Tax the rich about half of where REPUBLICAN Dwight Eisenhower did, Institute a VAT, legalize and tax pot, go all in on green energy, fix and modernize our infrastructures and national parks, hire millions of people to do all this.

Instead we are subsidizing a bunch of Scrooge McDucks, wallowing in their money vaults.