9.9 Million Reasons to Support a Big-Box Living Wage
Your Chi-Town Daily News reports that documents released Tuesday by the Living Wage Coalition showed Target Corp. has received $9.9 million of taxpayer money to open stores in Chicago:
And that's just two Target stores. There is not yet word on how many millions of tax-payer dollars have been collected by the 40+ other Chicago big boxes that are now crying poor.Target has received $5.3 million in city funds to subsidize a store in McKinley Park and $4.6 million to subsidize a store on West Peterson Avenue, according to the Neighborhood Capital Budget Group. ***
Supporters of the ordinance claim big-box retailers are some of the nation's wealthiest corporations, can afford the wage hike and will be drawn to Chicago's huge market potential despite it.
The report is, in part, a response to Target Corp.'s claim that the minimum-wage ordinance makes the opening of new stores in Chicago cost-prohibitive.
11 comments:
So what happens to those employed at the "living wage coalition" when people start making this "living wage"?
You don't like Target? dont' shop there...not happy with how they run their company? don't work there.
Have a nice day.
Would have made more sense to invest $1,000 in Illinois E-Bonds for 9,900 indigent kids.
Same with Illinois's monument centralized state planning in the empty Motorola plant in Harvard.
Anyone know what happens if Target or any other "big-box" retailer that gets city funds doesn't actually build here? Did Target, for example, actually get two great big novelty checks for $9.9 million, or is this tax incentive money contingent on a physical presence in the city?
Anyone who thinks that stores will not open here because of the living wage ordinance is either shilling for the corporations or a fool. Where else can they peddle their foreign made slave labor junk than here in the land of plenty? God forbid that the City might expect them to pay their employees a respectable wage in exchange for the millions in tax breaks they receive so we can buy their trash.
I know they are used to paying $1.00 or less per hour in their sweat shops so it is a shock to them to have to actually pay meaningful salaries. I hope they all go-go to China and let the Chinese buy their own junk
...is either shilling for the corporations...
Safeway or Albertsons?
So Austin,
Why not focus the campaign against the subsidy to Target? That is the A-1 problem. Why are we paying these companies to locate here, then penalizing them for locating here? How about LESS meddling in private business, and letting the customer decide where he wants to shop?
JBP
JBP,
I cannot imagine what would make you think that I am in favor of corporate welfare of any kind.
My point is that these corporations have no problem when it comes to multi-million dollar handouts from municipalities, but they cry about free markets when those same municipalities require them to stop exploiting their workers. When the corporations and Daley clearly screwed the workers/taxpayers once, there is no reason that they are not trying to do so again.
I cannot imagine what would make you think that I am in favor of corporate welfare of any kind.
The ordiance was a sop to Jewel and Dominicks.
Where I think IFCWU opted out for a two tier pay scale by way.
So much for class solidarity.
This has nothing to do with target. It has everything to do with city governments!
Nothing to do with Target?
Is that a joke? And how does that refute the fact that they happily take taxpayer money but refuse to pay a wage that would support a family?
...refuse to pay a wage that would support a family?
That's the strange thing Austin. The supporters of this ordinance have this 1950s notion of what a family is. That one wage earner (male?) supports a family and there fore needs a family-wage.
It's way too many single moms raising kids, and these stores are largely operated by kids.
The low page jobs provide entry ... they allow kids to contribute to family income for families that don't look at all like a sole wage earner supporting them.
Now some would argue it's the supporters of this ordinance that also helped us get to the point where families don't look like the Donna Reed show with a single wage earner...
...but I think it's a little more complicated then than.
Either way, the supporters need to get real about what families look like today, and what kind of jobs are needed to be available for them.
SCAM,
I am with you. Stop paying Targe to locate it. They will locate here if they want to get sales.
But, by no means should this be tied to wage regulation. Just completes the circuit of government management of industry, getting us in the pickle we are in today: customers cannot buy the things they want locally.
JBP
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