> You don't think you're jumping the gun here, maybe? Do you even know what the compensation will be?
Walmart is known for high wages.
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Are you already zorked this early on a Friday? Then why are so many of walmart's employees on social benefits? https://www.thenation.com/article/walmart-wages-are-the-main...
Sarcasm, I'm guessing.
If it is, then that needs to be clarified; because for its industry and the "local" general stores it is replacing, Walmart pays more per hour.
For the Uber/Ubereats and other gig economy estimates, $11/hr is well above the industry take home.
Walmart is in progress of raising it's minimum wage to $11/hr, 22% more than federal $7.25 minimum wage. The Times covered this in the past https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/20/business/walmart-raising-...
Before graduating college, the most money I made was working for Walmart at a distribution center. I made $19.20 an hour which was pretty good considering minimum wage was just over $5.
Can anyone actually live on $40 a day?
At least 80% of humans live on $10 per day or less.
http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-sta...
The parent meant in the area where Walmart etc are paying that wage.
Okay, then since the Walmart employees are still alive, the answer is yes. They can live on $40/day. As an added bonus, they have a higher standard of living than the vast majority of humans on the planet.
Well, no. If they could, they wouldn't be receiving assistance.
Walmart has turned, e.g., food assistance programs into a subsidy for themselves.
If you can imagine a world in which food assistance programs suddenly came to an end, would Wal-Mart raise its wages? Perhaps the workers would demand more. Either way, in the long run it's not possible for any employer to pay wages below the basic survival rate.
Irrelevant without context.
I was intentionally providing context.
Certainly in a place like Boise, ID. That's $800/month, $704 after tax. Rent with roommates will run around $300/month. Food is $150/month ($5/day). That leaves $250/month for misc expenditures. It would absolutely be tight, but people can and do live on that much.
Hope you never get sick and have to call in, your car never breaks down, and you never have a medical emergency!
If you get seriously sick 3X (5 time even) that amount won't save you. But as things stand now you'd have free(ish) healthcare anyway.
Car? What car? You are walking, biking, riding the bus.
It's doable, barely, just barely and there will be troubles if anything comes up.
Would that qualify as life or merely survival? Can a person under these conditions become a parent? Can someone in this situation raise a healthy kid?
I doubt it.
No, you can't have a kid on this money. Nor is it a very good life in terms of material possessions. You probably can't afford a horse either.
But none of those things were specified in OP's post.
What if you have a family?
It raises some interesting questions. Should every job pay a sufficient wage to raise a family? How big of a family? Should we require employers to pay a teenager as much as someone supporting a family of 8?
Food goes up a little bit, and your room is more crowded. Everything else is the same.
Go look at the size of a log cabin, they were about the size of a single bedroom today and large families lived in them.
> [if you have a family] Food goes up a little bit, and your room is more crowded. Everything else is the same.
The amount of money and extra time that we spent on just one baby was astounding - clothes, doctor visits, food. Many more trips to the store/pharmacy/doctor, etc, than normal.
The USDA's child cost estimator [0] says that raising a child in the midwest costs about an extra $12000 a year, on average. Not all of that breakdown may apply, but even if you were to ONLY look at food costs, an extra $1500/year in food (when you're only making the hypothetical $800/month discussed in the GP) is not "a little".
My wife is great at scrounging: kids didn't add much to my costs unless we are eating out. You can get last years styles all over for cheap. My kids can have a few stains - they will be putting their own on anyway.
Hopefully you have a second wage earner in it.
The poster's point is that $19.20 is significantly above the federal minimum wage and what Walmart is legally required to pay.
I want to emphasize in this context (gig delivery) that the recent UberEats Stockholm posting indicated even less than $5/hr.
Yes. Most people want a higher standard of living, but if you live in a small enough apartment, walk everywhere, cook your own meals, have only minimal utilities (your furnace exists for the pipes not for your comfort)... it can be done.
Distribution center is different than in store associates.
If only we had some patterns of previous behavior towards employees at Walmart from which we could make inferences about whether the deal offered (well, eventually, this will be "offered" to employees, ie totally optional, unless you want to keep your job) will be a fair deal or exploitative.
I made a few dollars above minimum wage when I was 18 before I started college. Not much on my resume other than similar jobs expected of someone in highschool. I was very happy with my job there.