Why Walmart workers are still broke (with Rick Wartzman)

Pitchfork Economics with Nick Hanauer

Civic Ventures

Business, Government, News, Politics

4.8 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 28 February 2023

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Goldy and Paul interview author Rick Wartzman about how America’s biggest employer (Walmart) began taking better care of its workers (by raising wages)—and why that decision might be too little, too late. According to Wartzman, Walmart has gone through a remarkable transformation, but there are limits to how much positive change this brand of socially conscious capitalism can create. Rick Wartzman is co-president of Bendable Labs, a technology, consulting and research firm that builds and tests social innovations in the areas of lifelong learning, workforce development and job quality. He’s the author of several books that meet at the intersection of business and society including Still Broke: Walmart's Remarkable Transformation and the Limits of Socially Conscious Capitalism, The End of Loyalty: The Rise and Fall of Good Jobs in America, Obscene in the Extreme: The Burning and Banning of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, and The King of California: J.G. Boswell and the Making of a Secret American Empire. Twitter: @RWartzman Still Broke https://www.publicaffairsbooks.com/titles/rick-wartzman/still-broke/9781549156250 Walmart and McDonald’s have the most workers on food stamps and Medicaid, new study shows https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/11/18/food-stamps-medicaid-mcdonalds-walmart-bernie-sanders Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm David Goldstein, senior fellow at Civic Ventures.
0:11.8	I'm Paul Constant and I'm a writer at Civic Ventures.
0:16.0	Paul, so just before we started recording, I revealed to Ashley that part of my past career
0:24.7	that I was the co-author of an off-broadway musical flop, but you have an illustrious background
0:31.6	as well.
0:32.6	I understand.
0:33.6	That is correct.
0:34.6	I worked at a Walmart in Colorado Springs for exactly three weeks and it was part of
0:42.5	my misspent youth.
0:43.5	It was right after my career as a mall Easter bunny, but yeah, I worked at Walmart and
0:50.4	it was one of the more demeaning jobs that I'd ever worked.
0:54.1	It was actually a Walmart super center that was going to open in Colorado Springs and
0:59.3	so we were just setting up.
1:00.4	I didn't actually do any customer service.
1:02.3	I was just following the diagrams of the store, putting stock on shelves and all that.
1:09.2	Then three days before the store was supposed to open, they announced that we weren't far
1:15.6	enough ahead of schedule and so they were locking the doors and we were not allowed to leave
1:21.0	until the shelves were stocked.
1:23.4	I remember this announcement very clearly and then the managers came down and there
1:26.3	were parents who were crying.
1:27.5	They were like, my kids, I've got to get home to my kids.
1:32.0	What do I do about that?
	...

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