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Comment by josefresco | Hacker News Reader

> Tencare provided my health coverage, my 6 year old received free lunch, I had reduced rent, and I had assistance for groceries.

What does that have to do with Walmart? Was anyone else offering you a job? Walmart didn't make you poor, they offered you and other people like you a lifeline.

> A good chunk of Walmart’s workforce were scheduled to work part time hours to avoid receiving any benefits

Not great but not terrible - how many competing offers do Walmart employees have exactly? And again, how is this Walmart's fault?

I lived in a town in the 90's that was host to a new Walmart that everyone thought would decimate the town. 25 years later and the town is larger and more robust than it ever was when I lived there. The only businesses it seemingly hurt, was the struggling and very lame department store across the street.

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I don't understand. It's not about what is or isn't "Walmart's fault", it is about Walmart structuring their employment in such a way as to funnel labor costs onto taxpayers.

My comment was specifically about the last line of his post. His economic situation was not caused by Walmart. Walmart is a lifeline to many, many Americans. Both consumers and their employees.

While I don't agree with them using "part time workers" to avoid paying benefits, no one is forcing these people to work at Walmart.

Furthermore, the author of the article is claiming that Walmart has helped Americans by saving them billions on the goods they purchase. The user I"m replying to is claiming they've cost Americans billions in taxes because of how they structure their employee compensation. Both are right but I'd tilt the balance of "good" towards Walmart. In a world without Walmart, these people would have LESS employment opportunities and we'd all pay more for the goods we purchase from traditional regional/local stores.

Walmart is a creator, it's easy to criticize creators while we all sit on the sidelines doing nothing.

> no one is forcing these people to work at Walmart.

Except for, you know, starvation and homelessness. We need to get past the idea that people on the low-end of income choose their jobs. You take whatever happens to be open at the time.

If we took the billions in taxes that Walmart causes and put it toward those higher prices at other grocery stores and welfare would we have a net-benefit or loss?

> We need to get past the idea that people on the low-end of income choose their jobs.

It seems this is never accounted for in peoples' simplistic supply and demand view of employment opportunities. Let's be charitable and assume there are better employment options out there than Walmart for a given subset of their employees. Let's say they have unused salesmanship skills that could potentially earn them $80k a year at something like a car dealership that requires no additional education.

Now we're talking about commission-based income, or perhaps an extra two weeks without a paycheck just to switch jobs. How many low income people can afford to miss a paycheck? It's not just the lack of alternate opportunities... it's also the lock-in of having no savings after basic necessities are paid for.

It is much more complicated than that. Ultimately Walmart can either give two people jobs that help them live their lives with some government assistance, or give one person a full-time job while the other person goes homeless (or more likely fully reliant on government assistance). And note that the person who got the full-time job in the latter scenario would no doubt have to work a very tiring, mind numbing job on a full-time basis, and would struggle to be as productive as two part time workers who only have to do that work a few days a week and are therefore not as worn out.

Additionally, if Walmart was to require full-time hours from employees it would remove a large pool of workers who would otherwise benefit from having a work opportunity. Older people, students, and others that can't work full-time would not be able to get a job. And all those excluded people would now be jobless and once again relying on government assistance.

If the local economy is so bad that Walmart is your only job option then that area is going to be a tax dollar sink either way, taking more back from government assistance than it generates in tax revenue, as many small towns do. At least if Walmart hires more part time people it gives a larger number of the locals some control over their lives instead of leaving them fully dependent on assistance.

If the choice is to work for Walmart and earn some money, but not enough to support your yourself and your family entirely, or not work anywhere, then the existence of Walmart seems to save the government having to provide 100% of your support instead of just some of it? It seems your argument is that if you are homeless and starving, that you are less of a cost to the government than if you are working for part of your support?

Another argument could be made that if Walmart did not exist, then another employer or group of employers would exist that would hire the same number of workers and give them more hours/benefits. However, such an argument would require significant analysis to demonstrate. From what I have seen, other, smaller businesses are as bad or worse than Walmart when it comes to those things.

>it is about Walmart structuring their employment in such a way as to funnel labor costs onto taxpayers.

I am having a really hard time thinking about the situation and agreeing with your implied premise that Walmart should employee people if and only if they pay them enough to remove them from all government benefits (or even healthcare). Does Walmart purposefully structure employment so they don't have to provide healthcare? Undeniably! It saves them tons of money! I have a hard time thinking of this as an immoral act that you imply it is.

Why is it wrong for them to do it?

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