Upon reading the Jan. 14 article “Wal-Mart goes on the offense” I began to ponder the topic of earning a living wage. A living wage ensures that employers pay employees a reasonable income to meet all the basic needs, including health care. This can also include putting a cap on the percentage gap between the highest paid person and the lowest paid person within an organization, thus closing in on the widening gap of rich and poor in our community.
Although Wal-Mart claims the average wage is $9.98 in the Puget Sound area, we must also consider how skewed statistics can become when executive wages are mixed with minimum-wage floor staff. Wal-Mart stores are not alone in committing this economic injustice. Many large chain corporations including retail, grocery stores and fast food restaurants, take advantage of the high unemployment rate and large number of working poor desperate enough to accept low pay, part-time hours and lack of health care.
Many health-care plans range from $300 for a couple to $500 for a family. For an employee making minimum wage, this could be one-third to one-half of a person’s take-home pay. This is hardly possible for many working families, leaving them to depend on state supplemental medical, food stamps, and child-care benefits often inadequate to cover all costs. Many youth are left unattended.
Surely Wal-Mart and other large corporations make enough from community patrons to pay their employees a living wage. When adding up the lack of health care, supplemental state benefits and unsupervised youth, it is clear to me that they are more of a cost than an asset to our community.
Kristina D. Coyle
Everett
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