Walmart Offers To Foot College Tuition Bills for US Employees (bloomberg.com)

Walmart will begin offering to subsidize college tuition for its 1.5 million workers in the United States, joining a growing list of companies that are helping employees pay for higher education as a perk in a tight labor market. From a report: The retailer's 1.5 million employees can now pursue associate's or bachelor's degrees in business or supply-chain management at three nonprofit schools for $1 a day, according to a statement Wednesday. Walmart will subsidize tuition, books and fees and provide support with the application and enrollment processes. As many as 68,000 employees might sign up, Walmart executives estimated. "Many of our associates don't have the opportunity to complete a degree," said Drew Holler, Walmart's U.S. vice president of people innovation, in an interview. "We felt strongly that this is something that would improve their lives and help us run a better business." The tuition program -- offered to part-time staff as well as full-timers -- is the latest move by Walmart to improve employee retention and engagement. A handful of other companies, including Starbucks and Amazon, also offer tuition support.

Comments

I had an employer do this to me

[rsilvergun]

it was basically an backhanded way to get me into a training program for the job. The way it worked they would send me to a specialized program for some skill they wanted me to have (that had no value outside of their business). If I dropped out I was on the hook for tuition. Also I had to pay out of pocket and wait for reimbursement, which wasn't paid out until 6 months after I graduated.

Fortunately I got out before they foisted it on me. The way it was structured I was basically paying for required training and then if they made enough money off me in 6 months I'd get it back. All the risk was on me. I'm not saying this is what it is, but it sure looks like it.

Re:How about a living wage instead?

[bluefoxlucid]

WalMart makes their entire business on low prices, at a 3% profit margin (impressive). They've said they're neutral in minimum wage; they seem to support it, some say because a higher minimum wage will crush WalMart's small competitors.

Higher wages will inevitably lead to higher prices. It's not by much, but it's there. A $2 raise is about a 10% price increase on average--$20 pants become $22 pants--and they don't want everyone running to Target, causing loss of WalMart jobs, gain of Target jobs, and disruption for working families.

A minimum wage increase would cause a wage increase at WalMart and Target, causing the associated price increases. Structurally, nothing changes: WalMart still has lower prices, even if those prices are slightly-higher. Any impoverished Target employees shopping at WalMart are still shopping at WalMart, are better-paid, are paid more than enough to offset the price increases themselves, and so funnel more money into WalMart (so they can keep their same profit margin without as much of a price increase). WalMart gets richer.

It's WalMart's 3% NOP that gets me. That's insanely-low; it's impressive, to say the least. Adidas Shoes has 5%; about 8% is reasonable, just by being a common baseline; Comcast usually has 11%; and Microsoft and Apple hold above 20% NOP. I support a fair corporate income tax with a higher tax rate when the corporation's NOP is above reasonable levels; that generally means WalMart gets a tax cut and Apple gets to pay 48%. I don't honestly have a problem with this.

Re:Know what else might help?

[ShanghaiBill]

If they raise pay, much of it is taxed away by payroll taxes (SS, SSDI, unemployment tax, etc) and is taxable income for the employee. Many of Walmart's employees qualify for EITC, and higher pay will push them out of that bracket. For every dollar extra that Walmart pays, about 60 cents ends up in the employee's pocket.

Tuition assistance avoids these problems. A dollar in is a dollar out.

Re:Know what else might help?

[alvinrod]

Even minimum wage labor is often a major part of expenses. Consider restaurants where employees are minimum wage or potentially below that in jurisdictions where tips can compensate for wages paid out if they're above a threshold. The leading expense for a restaurant will still be staff, and even if you include the cost of sales with expenses, the labor will be as much or more than the food in most cases. That's why there's any number of restaurants that offer $10 all-you-can-eat buffets. It's no more expensive for a restaurant to give Americans (who can shovel down enough food to make one third of the country obese) as much as they want to eat if it means they don't need to involve wait staff or servers in the transaction. The automated system to replace that human labor isn't going to get high and not show up for work either.

Also, not all jobs can command a living wage for a given area. You make the mistake that assumes all labor is valuable. Should I be guaranteed a living wage if I want to fashion life-sized busts of president Trump from cow manure that I sell by the side of the road in western Oklahoma? You can only pay someone as much as consumers are willing to pay for their labor. If no one in western Oklahoma wants to buy a Trump dung-head, then my labor is not valuable at any price.

Money is merely a commodity and attempts to shuffle it around do not change the underlying reality that there is a certain amount of productivity and that the relative value of any labor cannot be established by fiat. Were that the case, the Soviets would have won the cold war and many Venezuelans wouldn't be facing starvation at the current moment. If you want the most impoverished individuals to be more well off, the only effective method is to increase the overall amount of productivity and wealth in the world. They will still be about as poor relatively speaking, but they can get a tiny slice of a bigger pie. That's why it's not uncommon to see homeless people with cell phones. Productivity improvements and technological advancements have made them so ubiquitous that their within reach of almost all of society.

Re:How about a living wage instead?

[bobbied]

Living pay check to pay check isn't about how much money you bring in, but about how much you are spending in most cases.

I don't know who you think you are by being rational, but stop it! People don't want to take responsibility for themselves, but would rather make poor decisions and then blame someone else for the inevitably poor results.

Yea, I'm very sorry.. The whole "pull yourself up by your own boot straps" "hard work wins" message is quite hurtful to those who think the world owes them and will throw a riot, burring down their own neighborhoods to prove it. I know the pain they feel when the welfare checks get delayed or the WIC debit card stops working for 20 min and I just added to it by making them feel responsible for themselves, if just for a brief moment..