Apple vs. Walmart

[GladGradDad]

<p>

I would also wager a bet that most Apple employees in the US earn a living wage/have health insurance verses Wal Mart where most of their employees have neither.

This is, to use a pun, apples and oranges. Comparing the income of the engineers, designers, and higher level professionals of Apple in the USA, given manufacturing is done offshore, to the clerks and lower level positions held by many Walmart employees will of course result in a difference in salary level but the same would be true if you compared Apple or Microsoft or Google employees against JC Penney or Sears or Target employees.</p>

<p>Maybe a more fair comparison would be to compare the warehouse worker at Apple with the warehouse worker at Walmart. I don’t actually know how they’d compare but I’m sure it’d be much closer than comparing the salary level of a software developer with a cashier.</p>

[mom2collegekids]

<p>*
Am I willing to pay $100 for the pair of jeans is made in the US compared to $35 for the pair made in Sri Lanka or someplace like that?*</p>

<p>This is an interesting point.</p>

<p>I remember when my mom had to buy me new church shoes back in 1965. They cost $10 and that was a big deal. There was another pair for $9, but I didn’t like them as well. These weren’t some fancy brand, that was just what they cost. My mom had to think long and hard about this purchase. These were just some regular patent leather shoes that many girls wore back then with lace trimmed bobby sox or tights. (of course, mom had to buy them a couple sizes bigger so I’d get longer use out of them… ) </p>

<p>I could probably get similar shoes today at a Walmart/Target type of store for about the same price today!</p>

<p>When I was in high school in the early/mid 70s, a pair of pants would cost me about $20-25…which was a LOT back then since I was only earning 1.80 per hour (yikes!). these were typical teen pants…not corporate wool pants…but they were made in the USA. A cute teen top would be about $16.</p>

<p>Today…those same pair of pants…made overseas…would not cost me much more in 2011 dollars!!! And, I can find cute teen tops on sale at stores for about $16. Amazing. (Frequent sales is also something we didn’t have “way back then”)</p>

<p>The truth is…our clothes, our shoes, our appliances, our electronics are all a lot less expensive because they’re now assembled overseas. Most of us could not afford truly Made in the USA items anymore.</p>

<p>*I would also wager a bet that most Apple employees in the US earn a living wage/have health insurance verses Wal Mart where most of their employees have neither.</p>

<p>===============================
This is, to use a pun, apples and oranges. Comparing the income of the engineers, designers, and higher level professionals of Apple in the USA, given manufacturing is done offshore, to the clerks and lower level positions held by many Walmart employees will of course result in a difference in salary level but the same would be true if you compared Apple or Microsoft or Google employees against JC Penney or Sears or Target employees.*</p>

<p>exactly…you can’t compare the wages between skilled and unskilled…or compare jobs of the uneducated and the educated.</p>

<p>I’m sure if you compared Walmarts CPA’s or similar educated positions to those employed elsewhere, you’d see comparable salaries.</p>

<p>That said…I wonder if many/any of the workers (non mgmt) at the local “Apple Stores” have great bennies…if they even have bennies.</p>

[emeraldkity4]

<p>Several of my friends have suggested I get a job as a “genius” but I don’t like the identical t-shirts.</p>

<p>The bennies aren’t bad though.</p>

<p>

As noted in the email, retail workers will not get the same days off (they need to be in the stores to continue to sell products during the busy shopping season); however, they will all receive three extra days of paid time off after the holidays. Apple employees in other countries will also get an extra three days of paid time off.

[Apple</a> giving employees extra paid time off this Thanksgiving for a job well done | TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog](<a href=“http://www.tuaw.com/2011/10/13/apple-giving-employees-extra-paid-time-off-this-thanksgiving-for/]Apple”>http://www.tuaw.com/2011/10/13/apple-giving-employees-extra-paid-time-off-this-thanksgiving-for/)</p>

[cartera45]

<p>There is no such thing as a computer made completely of American made parts so it’s not like the opportunity to buy American over Apple exists.</p>

[GladGradDad]

<p>

There is no such thing as a computer made completely of American made parts so it’s not like the opportunity to buy American over Apple exists.

True, but there are degrees of foreign vs domestic sourced components and foreign vs domestic assembly. They indicate this on cars and some other products.</p>

<p>I don’t know if it’s even possible to buy any consumer grade personal computer made largely in the USA even when it includes components from other countries. I’ve looked before but almost everything is built in China or other Asian countries including both the components and assembly.</p>

[soccerguy315]

<p>I am happy to buy Apple products… just like I am happy to order from Amazon or buy from WalMart if they have something I want.</p>

<p>shocking news: corporations build their products where it is cheapest.</p>

<p>maybe if USA repealed its minimum wage laws (and some other ones), these companies would produce their products here.</p>

[martina99]

<p>We can decry it all we want, but I don’t see consumer habits changing the tide in any way. Some who can afford to and feel strongly enough will shop elsewhere (Walmart) or buy American, but not enough to make a difference.</p>

<p>So what then? If we instituted trade tariffs, what would that do to the economy? Drive down corporate and shareholder profits. Inflation, I would think. Would it create jobs? Worsen consumer spending as prices rise? </p>

<p>I made my semi annual trip to Walmart yesterday. Our guinea pigs really like the brand of food sold at Walmart, they don’t like the brand at the mom and pop pet store (that costs twice as much). Since they rearranged the layout since last year, I had to wander a bit to find the pet food section. I was struck by how much cheaper many of the toiletry type items were than at a CVS (that helped drive the independent pharmacies out of business) or at the supermarket (a regional chain that pays minimum wage, part time hours and no benefits)</p>

<p>The problem is not as simplistic as bashing Walmart or Apple, and the solution isn’t simple either. Foreign car companies have US assembly plants, US car companies have components manufactured overseas.</p>

<p>Many companies, including my own, outsource skilled jobs elsewhere.</p>

<p>The whole economy is riddled with things that add to the trade deficit and take away skilled jobs for Americans.</p>

[turbo93]

<p>Invention and innovation my foot. With the profit margins that Apple has, they could easily afford to assemble many of their high end devices in the US with a minimum hit on profits. If you’re selling a $500 iPad which has $250 worth of parts and $7-10 worth of Chinese labor, and multiply the labor cost by 5 to pay US wages (not union Detroit wages but still decent) the end result may be the iPad would cost $550 if Apple passed all the cost to the consumer, $525 if half, and $500 if Apple decided they could live with a few less million per year in profit.</p>

<p>Yet they don’t do so. Good for them in any case, but with the premiums they charge they could well afford to do so. If not, they might as well stick FoxConn stickers on their products…</p>

[SouthJerseyChessMom]

<p>Great article by Wired Magazine writer who toured the Chinese plant-</p>

<p>[1</a> Million Workers. 90 Million iPhones. 17 Suicides. Who’s to Blame? | Magazine](<a href=“http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/02/ff_joelinchina/all/1]1”>http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/02/ff_joelinchina/all/1)
"By many accounts, those unskilled laborers who get jobs at Foxconn are the luckiest. But eyes should absolutely remain on Foxconn, the eyes of media both foreign and domestic, of government inspectors and partner companies. The work may be humane, but rampant overtime is not.* We should encourage workers’ rights just as much as we champion economic development.** We’ve exported our manufacturing; let’s be sure to export trade unions, too.*</p>

<p>"I’ve written thousands of posts, millions of words, about things. Usually things with electricity in them. Doing this for a living, on and off, for the better part of a decade, has greatly—perhaps fundamentally—changed how I perceive the world around me.** I can no longer look at the material world as a collection of objects but instead see interfaces, histories, and materials.** "</p>

<p>Another bit of information—
Apple sent COO Tim Cook to China after Foxconn suicides last year</p>

<p>[Apple</a> sent COO Tim Cook to China after Foxconn suicides last year - latimes.com](<a href=“Archive blogs”>Apple sent COO Tim Cook to China after Foxconn suicides last year)</p>

[BCEagle91]

<p>You can build a Computer with over fifty percent US content by dollar value if you consider the processor, operating system and application software.</p>

<p>New Balance makes shoes in the US for about the same amount as their foreign-made stuff. They also make them in the U.K.</p>