The Economy

Because it's not publicly traded, the stock price is determined by the board of directors, not by a market via price discovery. When you want to sell your stock (or you are forced to, because I believe they make employees sell if they leave their job) you get whatever THEY have determined to be the value of it. It's not a liquid market of buyers and sellers, which is the downside. So the price they give you could be more, less or around a more objective value. You have no control over it.

I don't know the ins and outs of how Publix runs that stock purchase program. To the exent they actually give employees shares rather than making them purchase them (through a retirement plan?), I guess it is a freebie. ... although, I'd really just consider it compensation in lieu of cash, and the cash would be more value to me if I had the choice. Before actually ponying up money to buy shares, I would be at least slightly suspicious of something whose value when / if I want to sell it is being determined that way.

 

My main source of income gets paid to me from an S Corp that I own. I know the first thing I'd do if they convoluted the tax code with something like that is I'd give myself a part-time job where I earn $20,000 of my income tax free through a different company. Can I do it multiple times with multiple part-time jobs?

 

Wal-Mart pays precisely what it needs to pay to attract the workers it needs. Through coercion, you might be able to take money from Wal-Mart's owners and effectively redistribute it.

But that is Wal-Mart, which has scale. And that is only if you don't get what is actually predictable, Wal-Mart ramping up a move to automate to get rid of as many workers as possible (because the investment expense to do it will look way more attractive).

The major effect will be that every small business -- which collectively employ way more people than Wal-Mart -- will be disadvantaged by what you want. You are advocating for a price floor (in the labor market). ... and despite the magical thinking of some people that defies all reality, price floors create shortages (it's as immutable as Newton's laws). ... in the case of this one, it will take people who have jobs and want jobs. ... and make it so they don't have jobs.

That is why the real cost of that "living wage" is "no wage" for a segment of people who used to have jobs.

How about people stop trying to design things they really don't understand? The zillions of little things like this that have already infected the country over the last several decades are a huge part of the reason things are getting worse for a lot of people, even as the arsonists ride in on the fire truck over and over again promising new ways to put out the fires they set in the first place.

What we need is voluntary exchange, not coercion. People can decide for themselves whether working for Wal-Mart (or anyone else) is to their benefit. If it's not or there are better options out there for Wal-Mart's workers, presumably Wal-Mart will either need to make its pay more competitive, or if it can't do that in a profitable way, it won't be able to operate.