{"id":1310,"date":"2011-11-06T10:48:59","date_gmt":"2011-11-06T15:48:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/11\/the-hidden-cost-of-wal-mart-jobs-in-public-safety-net-use-by-low-paid-employees.html"},"modified":"2011-11-06T10:48:59","modified_gmt":"2011-11-06T15:48:59","slug":"the-hidden-cost-of-wal-mart-jobs-in-public-safety-net-use-by-low-paid-employees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/11\/the-hidden-cost-of-wal-mart-jobs-in-public-safety-net-use-by-low-paid-employees.html","title":{"rendered":"The Hidden Cost of Wal-Mart Jobs in public safety net use by low-paid employees"},"content":{"rendered":"Interesting study from California whose results probably also apply\nto Georgia, showing that Wal-Mart pays about a third less than other\nretail companies, so little that Wal-Mart employees tend to use\nfood stamps and public medical assistance and housing to stay afloat,\nwhich thus “creates a hidden cost to the state\u2019s taxpayers.”\n

\nArindrajit Dube and Ken Jacobs wrote for UC Berkeley Labor Center, August 2004,\n\nHidden Cost of Wal-Mart Jobs: Use of Safety Net Programs by Wal-Mart Workers in California<\/a>.\nAccording to the\n\nUC Berkeley Labor Center:<\/a>\n

\nThis widely publicized report finds Wal-Mart\u2019s wage and health benefits\n\n<\/a>\npackages for its California workers to be below average as compared\nto the overall retail sector in California. The authors also find a\ngreater reliance upon public assistance programs among Wal-Mart workers\nas compared to other California retail workers. Finally, the authors\nestimate the additional costs to taxpayers of \u201cWal-Martization\u201d\u2014the\nadoption of Wal-Mart\u2019s wage and health benefits standards by retailers\nthroughout California.\n<\/blockquote>\nHere is an extract from the study:\n\n\n
\nWe estimate that Wal-Mart workers in\n\n<\/a>\nCalifornia earn on average 31 percent less than\nworkers employed in large retail as a whole,\nreceiving an average wage of $9.70 per hour\ncompared to the $14.01 average hourly earnings\nfor employees in large retail (firms with\n1,000 or more employees). In addition, 23 percent\nfewer Wal-Mart workers are covered by\nemployer-sponsored health insurance than\nlarge retail workers as a whole. The differences\nare even greater when Wal-Mart workers are\ncompared to unionized grocery workers. In\nthe San Francisco Bay Area, non-managerial\nWal-Mart employees earn on average $9.40 an\nhour, compared to $15.31 for unionized grocery\nworkers\u201439 percent less\u2014and are half\nas likely to have health benefits.\n

\n\n<\/a>\nAt these low-wages, many Wal-Mart\nworkers rely on public safety net programs\u2014\nsuch as food stamps, Medi-Cal, and\nsubsidized housing\u2014to make ends meet. The\npresence of Wal-Mart stores in California thus\ncreates a hidden cost to the state\u2019s taxpayers.\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<\/a>\nThis could help explain why Wal-Mart workers\n\nare protesting.<\/a>\n

\n-jsq\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Interesting study from California whose results probably also apply to Georgia, showing that Wal-Mart pays about a third less than other retail companies, so little that Wal-Mart employees tend to use food stamps and public medical assistance and housing to stay afloat, which thus “creates a hidden cost to the state\u2019s taxpayers.” Arindrajit Dube and […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[97,14,2,41,21,22,289],"tags":[3484,3487,8718,3488,3485,3490,3486,3489,1387],"class_list":["post-1310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-economy","category-government","category-health-care","category-planning","category-politics","category-science","tag-arindrajit-dube","tag-august-2004","tag-health-care","tag-hidden-cost-of-wal-mart-jobs","tag-ken-jacobs","tag-safety-net","tag-uc-berkeley-labor-center","tag-use-of-safety-net-programs-by-wal-mart-workers-in-california","tag-wal-mart"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-l8","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1310\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}