A twofer! The first part of this meme is false, he didn’t say Walmart would close stores. The 2nd part is misleading & brings up a red herring about wage theft. Nearly all of the wage theft lawsuits are decades old and have little bearing on Walmart’s current balance sheet.
▪️The first part of the meme’s claim comes from a Dec 6 interview with CNBC. McMIllion said retail theft was ‘higher than what it has historically been” and “If that’s not corrected over time, prices will be higher, and/or stores will close.”
https://www.cnbc.com/video/2022/12/06/walmart-ceo-on-rise-in-retail-theft-prices-could-go-higher-and-stores-will-close.html
▪️This spawned headlines and memes that Walmart was considering closing stores, but in context McMillon was clearly speaking generally. Walmart’s spokesman later confirmed this & said McMillion “was speaking about retail in general and not specifically about Walmart.”
https://factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com.33399EU
▪️The $1.5B in wage theft claim comes from the Violation Tracker from Good Jobs First, a left wing advocacy group. It compiles lawsuits against companies. There are 44 lawsuits for Walmart listed under “wage and hour violations,” you can check it out here:
https://violationtracker.goodjobsfirst.org/?parent=walmart&order=primary_offense&sort=desc&page=3
▪️The vast majority of the $1.5B comes from 3 lawsuits:
🔹$640M from 2008, settling 63 lawsuits over wage-and-hour violations, most of which happened years prior.
https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna28372433
🔹$242M from a 2016 settlement over meal and rest break violations. However, this claim dated back to a 2006 judgment of $78M, which was appealed over a decade and included post-judgement interest.
https://wjactv.com/news/local/thousands-get-early-christmas-present-from-walmart-class-action-lawsuit
🔹$152M in a 2009 class action lawsuit over violating California’s meal and rest break laws. These violations dated back to a 2001 lawsuit.
https://legalpad.typepad.com/my_weblog/2009/09/in-walmart-class-action-huge-judgment-followed-by-stillquitebig-settlement.html
🔹The two other largest settlements, violating California and Nevada labor laws, totaled $86M and $85M. They were from 2009 and 2010, and also dated back to years prior. The vast majority of the smaller settlements were also before 2010.
▪️Clearly, Walmart had problems running afoul of labor laws in the early to mid 2000s. But in recent years, there’s been very few big lawsuits, and settlements aren’t even a rounding error in comparison to their $572B in revenue.
▪️But retail theft is a significant current problem, affecting not just Walmart. Retailers lost nearly $100B to organized crime in 2021. Dismissing this by pointing to an irrelevant stat on wage theft is dishonest. (Ironically this source repeats the false claim about Walmart closing stores)
https://thehill.com/homenews/3767004-walmart-ceo-stores-could-close-with-uptick-in-shoplifting/
I first critiqued this terrible take by looking at how food has actually improved substantially. Even though I said the same could be done in every category, people said “you’re only doing food.” So let’s do air travel and see why it’s not gotten better, not worse.
▪️Aircraft have greatly improved. Just 15-20 years ago, many domestic routes (~15%) were flown by turboprops like the Brasilia, Dash 8 or Saab. Now, almost everything is in jets, and most aircraft have WiFi. Some even have Starlink, where you probably have faster WiFi than your home. Most major airlines offer dozens or hundreds of movies and shows to watch.
▪️Newer designs like the 787 have lower cabin altitudes and improved humidity, which make a huge difference in passenger comfort on long haul flights. The first/business class international market has gotten very competitive globally, with many carriers offering excellent service and amenities. Pods, suites, showers, etc. Coach still sucks but is dramatically cheaper ...
This is the complete opposite of an empirical fact. The right has now joined the left in being pessimistic about the modern world and completely unappreciative of the amazing abundance we now have. I’ll just focus on food here, but you could do it for almost every category.
▪️Fresh produce used to be available only in season. In the winter it was canned or frozen. People used to send fruit for Christmas gifts, it was that much of a luxury good. Now, you can get giant, sweet berries year around in every grocery store. Corn on the cob in February. Not to mention once rare items like dragon fruit, heirloom tomatoes or baby bok choy.
▪️If you didn’t live on the coast, seafood was either not available, frozen, or extremely expensive. If you lived in the Midwest and traveled to coastal locales you would quite literally be able to eat food you had never seen. Salmon has become much more abundant and accessible. You can get fresh ahi at Walmart today. Sushi and oyster bars exist everywhere ...
▪️This is a proposal that pertains only to graduate level nursing degrees, not undergraduate ones (which were never considered professional degrees). The proposal will have a 30-60 day public comment period next year, where groups can object, before the DoE will decide on it.
▪️This is about how much federal student loans someone can take out for a particular degree. The cap on graduate degrees is $100k ($20,500/yr), while a “professional degree” limit is $200k ($50k/yr).
▪️Under the new rule proposal, professional degrees include:
🔹Pharmacy
🔹Dentistry
🔹Veterinary medicine
🔹Chiropractic
🔹Law
🔹Medicine (including osteopathic medicine & podiatry)
🔹Optometry
🔹Theology
▪️The nursing degrees excluded are ones like master of science in nursing (MSN), doctor of nursing practice (DNP) and PhD in nursing. These degrees would be limited to $100k in federal student loans, like all other graduate degrees.
▪️These changes came from the One Big Beautiful Bill’s...
