Walmart And Washington DC's Minimum Wage Increase

Why Walmart is wrong for reconsidering moving forward on all 6 proposed new locations in Washington DC due to DC's recent minimum wage increase law for Mega Stores.

I am pro Capitalism and anti big government and too much regulation, for the most part. I hate a Nanny State whether pertaining to the private citizen, or businesses.  I believe in less regulation, and that their should be freedom for businesses to operate the way they seem fit. I believe private business, in some ways, is an extension of an owners individual rights. But clearly there must be some exceptions because there will be other individual lives and rights connected to any business, such as that of employees, suppliers, consumers, and etc.

It is because of these connections that of course in any good, well governed society, there has to be some government involvement and over site with private enterprise. It is just a matter of how much. We are seeing and learning that how much government regulation depends on, and should depend on the level of self regulation and fairness business practices businesses are willing to implement on their own.

Prior to the Super Store era, with mega square footage, and with the ability to sell almost every kind of product and service, for me and most Conservatives, how Capitalism worked, and little government interference was a no brainer. The market and employer/employee relations would just work itself out. Jobs like supermarket cashier was never meant to support whole families, so minimum wage is fine. If a worker wanted more, they could just get another job, and or get better educated and move into a higher paying profession. Then, others willing could just move into the vacated, entry level positions.

In the era of Super Stores like Walmart, we have a bit of an issue with this former Conservative logic, though. That latter option, college, is not available to all, and we still want to be fair to all workers at any level and pay scale.  Mega stores like Walmart, when they move into neighborhoods, they often put many other smaller businesses out of business. There is nothing wrong with that. It is fair competition. The community is still being serviced with needed products and services. Often times these stores can even support the local work force, if not more than the other stores in the community combined. But now, if there is a dispute, an employee now has fewer options, or no other options at all. When the hardware store worker had to stock the shelves, or sweep up, he had far less to do. But with a Mega store, even with more workers, there's more work for the same pay. I know I worked at one.

So with less options or no options given to low wage earners because Super Stores take out the competition, and due to stores like Walmart enjoying almost monopoly type mega profits for the same reason, it is only fair and right that these stores pay just a little more to their workers.

This type of thinking and reasoning is similar to night time differentials, for one example, that is often paid out to night time workers to compensate for the difficulties they might have. Super Stores should not fight this. They should have done it on their own. It is fair. Capitalism is fair and is an economic system that was set to be fair and just to all of society; private business owners, employees, consumers, and the communities they serve in general. It was never meant to be a system for greed. Yet, sky is still the limit, or there is no financial limits that can not be achieved using it justly and fairly. It can manifest the American Dream for anyone that gets involved.

Consider. As an aside. To my Jewish and Christian brothers, the system of Capitalism is the closest Earthly system to the land of milk and honey, and the system of the Kingdom of God.

God Bless America and Capitalism. They work.

Yulanda K.

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