The majority of rational people would agree that you cannot make a "living" working at Wal-Mart. Over the past seven years, story after story of Wal-Mart employees trying to organize for better pay and benefits have come and gone with no change. Growing up in West Virginia I have seen the demise of the middle class firsthand. Wally World is the biggest employer in a state with an unemployment rate of about 14 percent. The rise of the big box stores, with their promises of low prices, have all but eliminated competition in the market. Choice has become an illusion and the american tax payer now subsidizes those low prices. It sounds like I am making a case for minimum wage.....I am not.
Raising the bottom is not going to make this bad situation any better. When you raise the minimum wage in the short-term more people get laid off or fired. This is obviously not helping anyone's standard of living. The real issue is when everyone is getting paid "more", goods and services cost more. This creates the illusion of wealth, but all we have done is taken the same size pizza and cut it into more slices and calling it a bigger pizza. We need to increase the middle class jobs but we also need to do something to protect small business.
I propose a minimum wage on corporations that have more than ten thousand employees. These huge companies create artificially low prices because of ridiculously cheap labor overseas. This will help level the playing field and allow small business to catch up. Yes there will be less jobs from large corporations but more local jobs, and more jobs locally means more competition and competition is good for everyone.
Please comment, I would love to hear any thoughts for improvement.