Media

As Americans across the country head out en masse to malls and shopping centers to kickoff the holiday spending season today, it's important to remember that too many of the retail workers bringing us those deals earn meager wages.

The ranks of America's retail workforce have surged to more than 4.5 million workers, making it one of the nation's largest job categories. Their numbers swell further during the holiday crush, as stores take on additional seasonal employees. The U.S. is expected to add another 740,000 of retail jobs by 2020.

With Thanksgiving come and gone, we are now officially in the thick of the holiday shopping season, which means a good chunk of the country will be driving down to Walmart, Target, and other giant discounters to pick up gifts for friends and family. When they do, they'll be rewarding some of the largest companies in America for paying many of their front line workers poverty wages.  

This Black Friday the lives of low-wage retail workers were thrust into the spot light as employees of a variety of stores weent to work on Thanksgiving Day and strikersdescended on Walmart stores in 100 cities.

Chicago’s infrastructure is in need of a major upgrade, but so are are its dwindling finances. Mayor Rahm Emanuel doesn't want to raise taxes, nor look towards Washington, D.C. or Springfield to cover the costs of repairing and upgrading the city's infrastructure.

It already seems like an age-old question: “Has Wal-Mart been good or bad?”

This week, The Washington Post's  Ezra Klein is the one asking and weighing the costs to Walmart’s workforce, its supply chain, and its competitors against the low prices the store offers consumers. He asserts:

Chances are you missed this particular bargain on Black Friday: Agree to spend 15 cents more on every shopping trip, and Walmart, Target, and other large retailers will agree to pay their workers at least $25,000 a year.

On a talk show this past Sunday, Walmart worker Greg Fletcher spoke about the realities of struggling to provide for his family on the company's infamous low wages. David Frum, a conservative columnist atNewsweek, pointedly asked Greg whether he got the Earned Income Tax Credit, a tax refund meant to supplement the earnings of low-wage workers.

“Black Friday” sales are debt traps for people to rush out and buy on credit.

But we can fix this on both the wage and profit ends of the continuum. It’s not that complex a fix, but it requires seeing our country as a whole, as one people who rise and fall together.

We can fix this whole mess and have something for which we could really give thanks, if we just paid workers a little more.