# Making a Dollar without Working for It **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 18, 2014, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-a-dollar-without-working-for-it/688690 "2014-05-18T20:40:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2014, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-a-dollar-without-working-for-it/688690/61 "2014-05-19T22:05:24Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > Were you at the time bringing up children and trying to stay one step ahead of the landlord? Stayed in a closet with roommates and kept my zipper up. And worked 70+ h/week. I think a lot of these low-wage jobs make it hard to work a second. Irregular hours sink a lot of people who have more earning potential. Also makes it hard for them to take classes. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2014, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-a-dollar-without-working-for-it/688690/62 "2014-05-19T22:38:19Z")
> [@XT](#): > > Well, seems better than the ‘despite the fact that there is no law or regulation, let’s blame Wal-Mart for operating their business model in a perfectly legal manner by trying to play the “subsidized” emotional card, because we all know Liberals will lap that shit up’ gambit. 😛 Absolutely ! Because legal equals moral ! ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2014, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-a-dollar-without-working-for-it/688690/63 "2014-05-19T23:03:55Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > Stayed in a closet with roommates and kept my zipper up. > And worked 70+ h/week. I think a lot of these low-wage jobs make it hard to work a second. Irregular hours sink a lot of people who have more earning potential. Also makes it hard for them to take classes. Congrats on getting through all that. But many Walmartians probably only have but the one job (maybe family life doesn’t allow for more than 1), and between the rent, the car payment, gas, insurance, food, utilities, clothes, etc. I suspect that most don’t have a lot of money for investment. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2014, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-a-dollar-without-working-for-it/688690/64 "2014-05-20T00:07:32Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Absolutely ! Because legal equals moral ! Huh…I thought legal = legal. I didn’t know we were talking about morality. [QUOTE=BobLibDem] There is no law requiring you to return a fifty dollar bill that you see someone drop and walk away unknowing. You’re perfectly within your rights to keep it for yourself rather than catch up to them and return it. Of course, being on solid legal ground doesn’t make you less of an asshole. [/QUOTE] Um…well, yeah. That’s true. So, if you tell me that someone who picked up a $50 and walked away with it is an asshole then that’s a valid opinion. I’m glad we cleared that up, Bob. > [@](#): > > Walmart chooses to let taxpayers pay for their employees’ health care. They choose to browbeat suppliers into rock bottom prices for their products. They choose to pay their employees inadequate wages. Still legal, but still an asshole move. Uhuh. Again, glad we cleared that up…you don’t like Wal-Mart (neither do I, especially). So, what we should do is not shop there. And, well, I don’t. How about you, Bob? > [@](#): > > In other words, the invisible hand of the free market will solve everything. Not a strawman. If someone tells me that Costco’s model is obviously superior to Wal-Mart’s and attempts to use their employee retention and compensation model as an example of that, which is what I was responding too, then I’m going to point out what I did. It’s hardly the ‘invisible hand of the free market’, which was a strawman on your part and basically a standard Liberal/Lefty throwaway line that’s supposed to simply win any argument dealing with economics, markets or any of that nasty Capitalism stuff. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2014, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-a-dollar-without-working-for-it/688690/65 "2014-05-20T00:20:32Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > I was not the one who initially made the comparison. Costco is a place for upper middle class people to buy large quantities of stuff. It makes all of its profits via club memberships which are twice as high as Sams Club. Walmart and Sams Club are places for poor people to shop which means they are more price sensitive and Walmart has to watch its costs more. You must have some swanky Costcos where you live. The ones where I shop… well, it isn’t \*quite \*wall-to-wall plumber’s cracks and flip-flops, but it ain’t exactly the crowd at Sotheby’s either. ---
**Author:** ![OldOlds](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a3d4f5/32.png) [@OldOlds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldOlds)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2014, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-a-dollar-without-working-for-it/688690/66 "2014-05-20T02:14:00Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > And the argument can be made that it’s actually a benefit to society to keep those cats on the disability payments/welfare checks they scam for. > > As you say disability checks, unemployment benefits and welfare represent, quite literally, a pittance. As in, barely enough money to eat off of and not live in a dumpster. > > The scammers (all three of them) deploy their modest ingenuity and utter lack of ambition to collect that pittance, run through any number of hoops to do so, all in order not to have to work “for real”. Maybe they’re just lazy, maybe they like the thrill of playing the system or feeling smarter than The Man, maybe they simply cannot hold a stable job for reasons X or Y that nevertheless would not entitle them to social support from the State. A shitty personality, the social stigma of a diagnosed mental illness or time served in custody, an untreated substance addiction would all be examples. > > Were these people “rooted out” of the welfare system, without fixing the underlying causes of their issues naturally, they would likely deploy their ingenuity in other ways, ways that could very well be more directly harmful to the public - theft, burglary, assault, cooking meth… simple vagrancy… ; this would in turn require police attention to redress ($$$ and possible danger to the cops) before probably landing them in jail - where housing them would cost more than the food stamps they secure dishonestly. And where they would learn more antisocial ways, both from the institution itself and from fellow inmates. > > So in a very real sense, letting the scammers scam for chump change is a net benefit to society and to the taxpayers. In the grand scheme of things, who gives a good fuck ? You raise an interesting point. I have only known (personally) one person who chose disability when i felt he could work. An inlaw, he’s a complete douche that could never hold a job because of his personality. And it makes me think there really is something wrong with him. I have always sort of resented what i saw as his unwillingness to work, but in that light maybe he really does need it. Now, his insistance on continued procreation… ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2014, 10:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-a-dollar-without-working-for-it/688690/67 "2014-05-20T10:43:53Z")
> [@XT](#): > > Um…well, yeah. That’s true. So, if you tell me that someone who picked up a $50 and walked away with it is an asshole then that’s a valid opinion. I’m glad we cleared that up, Bob. Really? If you see someone drop a $50 and walk away unknowing, you think it’s perfectly fine to pick it up yourself and keep it rather than giving it back to the guy who dropped it? Apparently our moral Venn diagrams do not intersect. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2014, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-a-dollar-without-working-for-it/688690/68 "2014-05-20T13:51:30Z")
> [@VinylTurnip](#): > > You must have some swanky Costcos where you live. The ones where I shop… well, it isn’t \*quite \*wall-to-wall plumber’s cracks and flip-flops, but it ain’t exactly the crowd at Sotheby’s either. According to [this](http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/17/business/yourmoney/17costco.html?pagewanted=all) 9 year old article the average Costco shopper made $74,000 a year. I have seen more recent numbers indicating that the number has gone up to $85,000 a year. This is not a [coincidence](http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/25/fashion/25costco.html?em&ex=1196226000&en=14f641af60c51647&ei=5087%0A). Costco locates its stores in affluent neighborhoods to keep the riff raff out. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2014, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-a-dollar-without-working-for-it/688690/69 "2014-05-20T13:57:27Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > Really? If you see someone drop a $50 and walk away unknowing, you think it’s perfectly fine to pick it up yourself and keep it rather than giving it back to the guy who dropped it? Apparently our moral Venn diagrams do not intersect. The difference is the dropped $50 is the property of the original person. The money Walmart earns belongs to Walmart. If I see a person give a homeless person a fifty dollar bill, should I condemn that person or praise him? After all fifty dollars might feed that person for a couple of days, but they still need shelter, clothes, and medical attention. Why should the rest of society have to suffer because that jerk only gave the beggar fifty dollars and now we have to subsidize him for the rest. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2014, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-a-dollar-without-working-for-it/688690/70 "2014-05-20T15:18:01Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > The difference is the dropped $50 is the property of the original person. The money Walmart earns belongs to Walmart. > If I see a person give a homeless person a fifty dollar bill, should I condemn that person or praise him? After all fifty dollars might feed that person for a couple of days, but they still need shelter, clothes, and medical attention. Why should the rest of society have to suffer because that jerk only gave the beggar fifty dollars and now we have to subsidize him for the rest. First of all, I was simply stating that it’s a terrible thing to do to watch someone drop a $50 and not return it to them if you can do so. Just a little moral compass calibration. “The money Walmart earns belongs to Walmart”. You’re leaving out some pieces of the equation. I would rather say “The wealth that Walmart employees create for the stockholders should be shared in a fair and equitable manner”. Paying employees slave wages simply because the job market allows it and having a health plan that consists of referring employees to Medicare is not an equitable manner. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2014, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-a-dollar-without-working-for-it/688690/71 "2014-05-20T15:20:27Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > According to [this](http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/17/business/yourmoney/17costco.html?pagewanted=all) 9 year old article the average Costco shopper made $74,000 a year. I have seen more recent numbers indicating that the number has gone up to $85,000 a year. > This is not a [coincidence](http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/25/fashion/25costco.html?em&ex=1196226000&en=14f641af60c51647&ei=5087%0A). Costco locates its stores in affluent neighborhoods to keep the riff raff out. Costco shoppers’ average incomes are higher than normal because small business owners shop there. You’d see the same thing if you found figures for Sam’s Club or BJ’s. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2014, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-a-dollar-without-working-for-it/688690/72 "2014-05-20T15:23:41Z")
[QUOTE=BobLibDem] First of all, I was simply stating that it’s a terrible thing to do to watch someone drop a $50 and not return it to them if you can do so. Just a little moral compass calibration. [/QUOTE] Which, ironically, you failed to grasp and completely mis-read. So, I’m failing to see the point to that little digression if you weren’t going to bother reading what I wrote and just assumed you knew my ‘moral compass calibration’ already. 😛 > [@](#): > > Really? If you see someone drop a $50 and walk away unknowing, you think it’s perfectly fine to pick it up yourself and keep it rather than giving it back to the guy who dropped it? Apparently our moral Venn diagrams do not intersect. So, when I agreed it would be a dick move and that it was a valid opinion to hold, you just wanted to disregard that and state what my ‘moral compass calibration’ was based on your own assumptions anyway. So, again, what was the point of that little digression? I mean, granted, I think all this moral stuff is a load of horseshit, and your little calibration experiment was just a digression from the discussion, but why ask me and then disregard the answer? Seems even more pointless than, well, the pointlessness of the question in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2014, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-a-dollar-without-working-for-it/688690/73 "2014-05-24T16:39:59Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > Why is Walmart so special that the rest of us have to subsidize them? How is it a subsidy to Wal-Mart? I mentioned this in the other thread, but it bears repeating because of this fundamental misunderstanding of the way a free society works. Let’s assume for the sake of argument that a person needs $10/hr to meet what we would agree are his basic expenses (food, shelter, health care, etc.). I go into business and interview a job applicant whose skills and education level will allow him to be worth $6/hr on the open market (Let’s also assume that when he tries to look for other jobs, he is told $6/hr). So, society has a problem here with this individual. He needs $4 more per hour than he can get at a job on the market. So who should pay the difference? I say that the taxpayers who have made the collective choice to help the less fortunate should be the ones that pay. If I decide to hire this guy, why is it now MY responsibility to take care of his charity? I didn’t adopt him, I just offered him a job at the fair market wage. In what universe would the taxpayers be subsidizing me? My only answer to that would be this idea that if a business owner hires someone then he is de facto assuming all responsibility for the needs of the employee. That’s an awesome responsibility that has heretofore never been adopted in this country. Why should I have to pay a “living wage” to someone when the work he gives me doesn’t merit that pay? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2014, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-a-dollar-without-working-for-it/688690/74 "2014-05-26T00:33:35Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > Why is Walmart so special that the rest of us have to subsidize them? I find this line of thought puzzling as it usually comes from folks who want a single payer health care system, in which case every company would get a “subsidy”. The flaw in that reasoning is that it is somehow the responsibilities of companies to pay for health care insurance for it’s employees. As you must know, the US is pretty much the only industrialized nation where this assumption is made. By historical accident, most Americans got their health insurance through their employers, but it needn’t be that way-- and it SHOULDN’T be that way. Employers don’t provide food, clothing or housing for their employees, so why should they provide heath care insurance? ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2014, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-a-dollar-without-working-for-it/688690/75 "2014-05-27T17:02:17Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > If they went private tomorrow, would they fire everyone? Nope. The original stockholders might be credited for funding a company, but most of the current ones have little to do with day to day finances - often nothing. If Walmart went private tomorrow, it would still have stockholders. Stockholders own the company, whether it is private or public. Without stockholders there is no company, hence no employees. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2014, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-a-dollar-without-working-for-it/688690/76 "2014-05-27T17:09:33Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > My only answer to that would be this idea that if a business owner hires someone then he is de facto assuming all responsibility for the needs of the employee. That’s an awesome responsibility that has heretofore never been adopted in this country. Why should I have to pay a “living wage” to someone when the work he gives me doesn’t merit that pay? It is pretty a fundamental principle of law that the cost of doing business should be on industry. If Wal-Mart employees are all on public assistance, then Wal-Mart is putting part of the cost of its business on the taxpayer. This is particularly true in Wal-Mart’s case because it squeezes out other retailers who pay better and provide better benefits. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2014, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-a-dollar-without-working-for-it/688690/77 "2014-05-27T17:22:18Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Do we apply this to dividend and capital gains income, as well as to welfare income? And inheritance? Is inheritance suddenly theft? Or retirement savings? Seems to me that there’s a huge number of people investing billions of dollars who are somehow stealing from the working man in order to fund their retirements. Never mind that a lot of them ARE that working man that we’re talking about. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2014, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-a-dollar-without-working-for-it/688690/78 "2014-05-27T17:28:44Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > Costco locates its stores in affluent neighborhoods to keep the riff raff out. So what? I would too, if I owned a retail business. Less riff-raff due to placing my store in an affluent area means less theft, less need for security, and I can price my items higher because affluent people have more to spend, and are usually unwilling to drive across town to get a slightly cheaper price. Sam’s just has a slightly different business model- it looks like Sam’s Clubs are in poor areas, but that’s just because there seems to be a 3-4:1 ratio of Sams’ Clubs to Costcos in every town I’ve been in. The Houston area has 5 Costco stores and 20 Sam’s Clubs, and Dallas/Ft Worth has 7 Costcos and 24 Sams’ Clubs. Sam’s Clubs seem to run the gamut between poor and rich, while Costcos seem to concentrate on the upper middle class market, which like I said earlier, makes perfect sense, especially if you’re going to have a limited number of stores. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-a-dollar-without-working-for-it/688690.md?page=3)