Putting the blame where blame is due
Walmart. I know, Walmart sucks. They drive out local competition, all of the little mom and pop stores. They pay their employees crap wages, so low that many full time workers qualify for government benefits, such as food stamps. They are a crappy company, and I avoid them like the plague. I do not shop there, and I will not shop there. I keep seeing little memes on Facebook, about how wealthy the family is, and how they refuse to pay decent wages, and how horrible that is. I agree. However, they are acting within the law. There are many, many other companies out there paying minimum wage, whose employees can qualify for government benefits, and who therefore are costing taxpayers money to subsidize their companies. Add to this the tax revenue not collected due to low wages, and they’re costing us even more. Social Security and Medicare both have employee and employer portions. So the employee pays 1/2, and the employer pays 1/2, and both of these are based on a straight percentage of wages. So if the employee makes less money, Walmart pays less in Social Security and Medicare taxes. Thus, the practice of paying such low wages not only costs taxpayers (including Walmart employees, who do pay into these things as well as the rest of us) by the benefits they receive, but also the lack of money brought into programs that sorely need funding. Of course, employees who make less also pay less in income tax, at the Federal, State, and Local level (where applicable). So that’s less money the government has to pay for these programs, as well as less money for everything else, from roads to bridges to schools to wars they want to fight. We blame Walmart, but really, they are acting within the law. If the minimum wage is so low that a full time employee being paid minimum wage still qualifies for government assistance, then that speaks to the need to increase the minimum wage. It needs to be higher. It needs to be high enough that an employee working full time does not qualify (or need) assistance feeding themselves and their family. I despise Walmart, but here, I put the blame on Congress, and on the American people for not demanding a living wage.
Another example of putting the blame where blame is due. I keep seeing stories about how airline passengers are getting into fights over reclining seats. The person in front rudely decides that he or she would be more comfortable with the seat reclined (THE HORROR), and the person behind rudely decides that he or she would be more comfortable without the first person’s seat grinding into their knees, and perhaps they don’t want to be able to diagnose dandruff on said first person, either. Words are spoken, insults exchanges, and sometimes, it comes to fisticuffs. Don’t we all remember when it was not a crime of etiquette or common decency to recline our seat and have a little snooze? When that miniscule recline of the seat in front of us didn’t mean crushed knees? Those of us who are over 40 perhaps even remember when the seat in front being reclined didn’t mean that the person next to the window was trapped. The fights occur between passengers, and somehow it has become rude and almost hostile to recline your seat. But really, the blame there lands soundly in the lap of the airlines. Airlines that cram in more seats than the plane comfortably allows, pushing us closer and closer together, until the sight of a heavy person walking down the aisle fills fellow passengers with terror, because WHAT IF THEY SIT NEXT TO ME AND I CAN’T MOVE (all of this while Americans get larger, so DUH, it happens more and more). Airlines that cram in more rows than the plane comfortably allows, causing altercations over reclining a seat. It’s ridiculous. And the airlines say, “Want more legroom? Pay for more legroom.” They have sections of the airplane that boast more legroom. But those seats of course cost more money, often a lot more money. So what if, instead of cramming us poor folk into steerage, they instead charged everyone a bit more money, and had fewer seats on the plane? I do understand that the profit margin for airlines is small, and that we consumers have brought this upon ourselves, by being willing to fly on less comfortable airlines in exchange for less expensive flights. If we refused to pay for the cheap seats, and instead stuck to airlines that had better leg room and wider seats, it would not have come to this. I’m not sure how to turn this one around, unless it’s to try to find airlines that do offer these things to everyone on their flight, and only fly those airlines, and perhaps write letters to the management of these airlines telling them WHY we chose them. That might make a difference. Me, I don’t fly often enough to even know if such airlines exist, domestic flights with enough leg room that reclining ones seat doesn’t cause World War III.
5 Comments
Rain Trueax
Good points in both cases. I think with Walmart that the pressure should be on increasing minimum wage and continuing to fight for health care for all. I do shop at Walmart for certain items. When I am there, I see often handicapped or elderly employees that likely could not get jobs elsewhere. If the stores go down, it won’t hurt the owners. They are already wealthy but where can those people find jobs? Instead make the government protect them. We are having to fight now to keep any kind of reasonable expectations on government for the people as we face those who want government to have no power except to drop bombs. We who believe in government and want it to be effective better be active if we want any chance for it to stay remotely helpful to the weakest of our citizens. I’ve never seen such a terrible group of wealthy people who are proud of putting down the poor, destroying our education system and basically blocking any infrastructure improvements all in the name of dropping bombs somewhere else. Americans better wake up. The government is the only place where the weak can be protected or where airlines can be forced to have reasonable standards for public safety.
Ally Bean
I only shop at Walmart for one item because it is only available there. The entire experience is a nightmare. I don’t know why anyone goes into those places, but they do. Until more ppl come to their senses about Walmart, I doubt that anything will change. That family rules all.
I rarely fly and never put my seat back because I don’t want to inconvenience anyone else. I suspect that the “solution” to the seat back prob is going to be that none of the seats tilt back. That way the airlines can cram just as many ppl into the plane and there’ll be no arguments.
Ted
A long time ago, there was an airline called Midwest Airlines that had 2 by 2 leather seating, and ample leg room. They were a regional airline, but really popular with travelers because of the seating and the fact that they baked chocolate chip cookies during flights and gave them to all the passengers.
Alas, 9/11 really sunk their business model and they were sold to another airline. Today, they are known as Frontier Airlines. That’s the airline I took to Wisconsin last year and had terrible leg pain during the flight (due to us being crammed into our seats and the seats were hard as bricks).
Maybe the market is ripe for a return to “more leg room” with a slight bump in price. People may “buy up” for comfort if it’s reasonably priced. That’s all we want right? A clean, comfortable flight that’s reasonably priced. 🙂
Nance
Air travel is nothing more than a humiliating nightmare anymore. Shuffling through security with a tray full of my personal property in stockinged feet is akin to intake procedures I see in prison shows. We pay plenty for cramped inconvenience once aboard, and arriving on time or without some sort of unexplained delay is rare. The idea of paying for what should be a standard “comfort”–the ability to move your legs, not having your face four inches away from polyester, not having your elbow or shoulder sheared off by a stainless steel cart in the aisleway–is anathema to me. I know I’m not the only one.
WalMart is everyone’s favourite whipping boy, and it’s a designation well-deserved because they have made low wages, minuscule benefits, and Chinese imports their business plan, among other objectionable practices. In my town, they have also abandoned one enormous store in favour of building another less than three miles away, abandoned one building site across the street from their abandoned store because at the last minute decided they didn’t want to use it after all, and now those two places sit empty and awful. They own them both, and they aren’t doing anything with the properties but letting them sit idle and unused.
J., you’re right. The fact that the law allows them to squirm around and continue to operate like they do is sickening. And now we have Burger King merging with Tim Horton’s of Canada in another tax inversion strategy. But the republicans are poised to gain Congressional control in the midterms in a shocking display of voter ignorance. I don’t know what “the people” want anymore. I really, really don’t.
Nuvashini Devi
Dan and I travelled on Virgin Airline 3 years ago to London. It was a brand new plane everything was clean and bright. The seats however were for children not adults. Our shoulders overlapped with the person in the next seat. For 10 1/2 hour we squirmed, twisted and sitting forward to get some relief. I mentioned to the flight attendant that Mr. Bronson should fly in Economy for many hours.The cheap sod!!