Always Low Wages. Always!
I ran across a great diary at Daily Kos--Wal-Mart Math--which reprints a spouse's letter to the editor about how the low wages that Wal Mart provides its workers, which is one part of their equation to cutting costs of goods for consumers, is not only detrimental to the economic health and welfare of the average Wal-Mart worker but is also a drain on public assistance resources. First, from the diary:

Most of the employees at Wal-Mart don't make $15 an hour or $30,000 a year. According to the United Food and Commercial Worker's Union the average Wal-Mart employee makes $8 an hour, which would be a magnificent $16,000 a year with our shoes-off calculation. The problem is that the majority of Wal-Mart employees are only allowed to work 32 hours a week... (which) turns out to mean that the average employee at Wal-Mart makes a whopping $13,312 a year, and that's before taxes and such are taken out. And that, by the way, says a recent study from UC Berkeley's Institute for Industrial Relations, is 31% less than workers at other large store chains of 1000 employees or more.

The 2004 Health and Human Services guidelines says the poverty level for a family of three is $15,670 this year so you don't need to take of your shoes to see that an average Wal-Mart employee who is, say, a single-mom with two kids, is working below the poverty line.

The UC Berkely report. which can be downloaded in PDF format, focuses on the economic consequences to the state of California--but its findings can still be easily extrapolated to rest of the country. Here are the main findings:

• Reliance by Wal-Mart workers on public assistance programs in California comes at a cost to the taxpayers of an estimated $86 million annually; this is comprised of $32 million in health related expenses and $54 million in other assistance.
  
• The families of Wal-Mart employees in California utilize an estimated 40 percent more in taxpayer-funded health care than the average for families of all large retail employees.
  
• The families of Wal-Mart employees use an estimated 38 percent more in other (non-health care) public assistance programs (such as food stamps, Earned Income Tax Credit, subsidized school lunches, and subsidized housing) than the average for families of all large retail employees.

And here's the conclusion:

Wal-Mart workers’ reliance on public assistance due to substandard wages and benefits has become a form of indirect public subsidy to the company. In effect, Wal-Mart is shifting part of its labor costs onto the public. We estimate the cost of the subsidy to Wal-Mart in California for state taxpayers to be $86 million a year. Other retail firms that carry their own weight by providing self-sufficiency wages and employer-sponsored health insurance are placed at a competitive disadvantage, which can result in a downward cycle for wages and benefits across the industry. As we have shown, Wal-Mart’s long term impact on compensation in the retail industry has the potential to place a significant strain on the state’s already heavily burdened social safety net. We estimate the cost if large retailers throughout the state adopted Wal-Mart’s wage and benefits standards to be an additional $410 million a year in public assistance expenses. The public cost of low-wage jobs should be taken into account by policy makers at all levels as they make decisions about the kinds of economic development we should encourage in California and in our communities.

PBS's Frontline also recently had a great episode entitled, "Is Wal-Mart Good for America?" Instead of the labor/wage issue, it focused on Wal-Mart's economic relationship with China--both in the amount of goods purchased from the country and China's own low-wage economy. Here's part of the introductory summary to the program:

At a salary of only 50 cents an hour or $100 a month, Chinese labor is an unbeatable bargain for international business. And the Chinese government is doing everything it can to be sure the country's infrastructure supports the export business. Ten years ago Shenzhen's main port did not exist. Today it's on the verge of becoming the third busiest port in the world.

Wal-Mart estimates it imports $15 billion of Chinese goods every year and concedes that the figure could be higher -- some estimates range as high as $20 or $30 billion. Company executives are quick to point out they have always scoured the globe for low cost suppliers to benefit the American consumer.

"We do depend on products from around the globe to draw our consumers into the stores," says Ray Bracy, Wal-Mart's vice president for federal and international public affairs. "We feel they need to have the best product, the best value, at the best price we can achieve."

Some experts contend Wal-Mart's "everyday low prices" are causing a clash between the interests of Americans as workers and the desires of Americans as consumers.

"If people were only consumers, buying things at lower prices would be just good. But people also are workers who need to earn a decent standard of living," says economist Larry Mishel of the Economic Policy Institute. "The dynamics that create lower prices at Wal-Mart and other places are also undercutting the ability of many, many workers to earn decent wages and benefits and have a stable life."

If you've got some time, I highly recommend giving it a watch--it's available as either Real or Windows Media streaming video.

With the holiday season smack dab in our laps (hey, Gentiles--Hanukkah starts tomorrow), these bits are a good reminder that where you shop has its consequences that are larger than the immediate effect on your pocketbook. And if we're going to talk about morality and values, progressives/liberals need to ratchet up the discussion about economics and social justice.