Dollar Tree donates 89% to the Republican party and 11% to the Democratic party.
Don’t give ANY business ANY money if they are supporting our current dictator. Hit 'em where it hurts.
Most of the people who are forced to shop at Dollar Tree are the ones most negatively impacted by Republican policies. It’s pretty fucked up.
Agree. When the store opened here in town I saw a 1 grade point average fall for both kids I was taking care of. All the junk food they could get their hands on. Sugar, salt, fat. Not very many good choices for humans.
lmao you are laying your kids’ declining academic performance directly at the doorstep of a dollar store that showed up in your town??
They said “taking care of” maybe they are like a babysitter or nanny or something?
Is there any large company that does not donate to the Republican Party?
Costco seems to be good, I get the vibe that Trader Joes would be too but can’t find anything concrete
costco is great. They stand up for so many good things. I believe they hit back at all the antitrans shit. Go costco!
Some people on Lemmy say Trader Joe’s is anti union.
https://www.epi.org/publication/corporate-union-busting/
Try reading the facts before criticizing your fellow cousins.
… Fuck.
I used to like dollar tree.
Well. They’re dead to me now.
Of course, I’m lucky enough that I can afford to shop elsewhere; it’s the duty of all those who are capable to abstain for the sake of those who cannot.
I won’t tell you about their rat problems then.
Edit: My last post got -7 downvotes for agreeing with what was being said. Going to start a thing where I block communities where I get lots of downvotes for stupid reasons. I thought this wasn’t Reddit. Yikes. Be better.
So if on average each employee works 37.5 hours a week (likely more but im just picking a common number of hours worked) at 8.32 an hour it would cost 61.568 dollars to pay all 7400 employees for an hours work and 2,308,800 to pay them for a weeks work 52 weeks in a year is 120,057,600 of that profit to pay all of their employees 8.32 an hour…
They made 1,230,000,000 in profit.
Minus 120,057,600 is
1,109,942,400
Meaning the profit they made could cover 9x the salary of 7400 employees with 29,424,000 in change to pay their greedy CEO.
NOTE: numbers need peer review. I do not math.
One thing that isn’t on the math side: profit is the money left over after payroll (and all other expenses).
Dollar Tree has about 200,000 employees. Paying each of them $8 an hour for 20 hours a week, 52 weeks a year is ~$1.6 billion. This is just napkin math, taking a guess at where an average hourly employee would be working, hours-wise. Assuming the profit is going straight into company coffers, they could afford to significantly increase pay or hours overall, but the money doesn’t stretch as far as our intuition might think. The problem really might not be Dollar Tree specifically, but the system of economy that led to its creation, and the creation of other massive corporations that rest on the back of underpaid workers.
Their only real options as the system stands (not that it wouldn’t be moving in the right direction) are to pay less people more money, or increase hours. Their margin is thinner than it looks. Far better to throw the system out than pretend that the $10 million CEO check is anything but a drop in the bucket compared to the crushing reality of shareholder-driven profit margins. Fuck capitalism.
For what it is worth, Dollar Tree only has about 66,000 full-time employees. 134,000 are part time workers, so two thirds, who are not required to be given medical benefits–but are given access to pay premiums for enrollment in the company insurance plan.
You forgot payroll taxes
It seems obvious to be that a company should have additional taxes imposed on it if its has employees that qualify for financial assistance. Put them on the hook for the costs of supporting their employees one way or another.
Or you could just raise the minimum wage to a point where employees earning it are earning too much for food stamps. That’s how the UK does it. They lower the benefits bill by putting the burden on businesses rather than the state.
Usa employers did the math they fire most full-time employees and reduce staffing and only hire part-time workers walmart back in 2011-13 when I worked there only had 8-10 full time employees which were managers and even some department managers would only get 32 hours a week to avoid giving benefits or health insurance. Every one i knew who were full time worked there for 10 + years. Even if you increase minimum wage they will find ways to reduce costs in staffing so you really need to penalize companies
McDonald’s and Walmart will lobby against that.
Maybe as a punishment. It wouldn’t solve the problem in the correct way unless the taxes were MORE than the cost of paying a livable wage. Because the taxes would, at best and very optimistically, go towards programs that then give out money but only for very specific things like Medicaid or SNAP. It would be better for everyone if those employees just got the money as cash to use as they see fit rather than as a benefit that has to be used on certain kinds of food.
Dollar Trees and Dollar Generals fuck over poor people. Those “cheater” sizes of cleaning supplies or similar cost more for the same amount of product, it’s just that if you are broke you can only afford the tiny ass bottle of laundry detergent or whatever in the short term.
It’s fucking evil. Dollar Generals destroy small towns - drive out competition and intentionally understaff their stores. You replace local grocery stores which might provide several jobs and keeps money in the community with a Dollar General that pays someone subhuman wages to do everything.
The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles. But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet. Men at Arms-Sir Terry Pratchett
It costs a lot of money to be poor.
So anyways, the rich got rich through exploitation of people. This comment leans towards the lies right wingers teach their children that Bill Gates eats homemade sandwiches and wears cheap sweatpants, therefore learn to scrimp and save, implying you’ll be rich.
Absolute morons.
It implies literally the opposite, the rich literally buy more expensive products, and further is about a fantasy medieval society going through the beginnings of the Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution.
This particular phenomena has been noted in more detail as a fact of economics, IE it’s expensive to be poor, because the poor don’t choose low quality products they have to buy them because they can’t afford the larger upfront cost.
That depends a bit on the situation, I have seen some people from rich companies who learned things like in the quote from Sir Terry Pratchett, aka the cheapest is not always the best option.
Some people also got rich in the first place because they either studied hard and got to be a specialist earning hundreds of thousands a year for their job and others just came with the right invention in the right time, and we overpaid for it. You see that especially in tech where the costs where generally pretty low (especially bookkeeping wise since the original owner’s hours are generally not added in the bookkeeping) and they sold it for a lot.
That’s not the point Pratchett is making here. He is pointing to the fact that Vimes cannot afford the good boots. Ever. He explains there is no way for him to even save up for leather boots. It may also be worth noting that that character then benefit from having had bare soles and it becomes a kind of superpower to read the ground.
That said there is a big flaw in merotocracy, which is that the super rich have exponentially disappeared from that arena and owns the world now, and they don’t stop harvesting more at the detriment of the planet while actually not doing anything with the money extracted.
Its worth making the distinction between the ‘rich’ and the ‘super-rich’. The top 10% (in terms of wealth) own 70% of all US wealth, but then the top 1% owns half of that! So, relatively speaking, the ‘rich’ are poor compared to the ‘super-rich’. No one makes it to that 1% without exploiting fellow human beings. Numbers source: Capital in the 21st Century - Thomas Piketty.
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I like to take virtual tours of dead/dying towns via Street View. The one constant is that the one main Street has one Dollar General with cars in the parking lot, on the outskirts of town. The proper grocery/general stores are all dilapidated husks ‘down town’.
Not Just Bikes made a video about how American chains are just killing the US
It’s a plague that has all but ruined artisanship and cozy stores in many western countries outside the US as well
Well yeah, but there is a difference in the US where Amazon is your best bet to get things quickly and cheaply while in Europe smaller stores can offer similar prices and often they also do next day delivery. Especially in The Netherlands
This is the only positive thing I can say about dollar general. I’ve lived in some brutal food deserts and really small towns but God dammit there will always be a dollar general somewhere nearby.
It’s not great, or cheap. But man is it ever available.
Those “cheater” sizes of cleaning supplies or similar cost more for the same amount of product, it’s just that if you are broke you can only afford the tiny ass bottle of laundry detergent or whatever in the short term.
I didn’t notice how different the sizes were until I stopped going for years (between 2020 and 2024) and came back to find products that looked ridiculously tiny compared to what I remembered. The covid inflation fest made it way too obvious.
Dollar Trees and Dollar Generals fuck over poor people. Those “cheater” sizes of cleaning supplies or similar cost more for the same amount of product, it’s just that if you are broke you can only afford the tiny ass bottle of laundry detergent or whatever in the short term.
I’m so glad the “cheap” stores around here don’t sell tiny versions of products. It’s non-brand name/lower quality or larger quantities to make them cheaper per volume.
For example my current toilet paper brand comes in four packs in the grocery store, with consistently good quality. The “cheap” store sell nine packs of the same stuff for 50% or so more, but you risk getting some that are slightly worse quality than the four packs. It’s made in the same factory and is never bad, it’s just that the second tier of quality control goes into the bulk ones.
Side note: I know people who have worked in/with soap facilities. And they mix, bottle and ship out dozens of brands. The majority of each type of soap, is made from the same base ingredients. Some are a bit watered down, lack pleasant scent, color or similar. But you can easily find soap that is at half the price of fancy ones, that work just as well(might need tiny bit more, but not enough that you lose money).
each type of soap is made from the same base ingredients.
Soap is one of the most basic things you can make. It’s just fat, lye, and water. It’d be like saying “each type of bread is made from the same base ingredients”
Essential oils, lye, and some kind of vegetable oil are fairly cheap if one is willing to go full crunchy and make their own. You just have to wait a few weeks for your soap to cure, and be really cautious with the lye because it will burn you.
Alternatively, bar soap is always better bang for your buck. I’m on Old Spice 3-in-1 because something I can squeeze out of a bottle let’s me be lazier, but when mega broke Irish Spring has saved my hide many a time.
Vinegar + old newspapers is a great window cleaner. Better than windex.
I make my own cotton dishrags with whatever cheapest/ugly cotton yarn is available.
But you can’t really beat Dawn for dishes or Tide for clothes. I’ve tried.
Yeah, dishes and clothes are often the exception depending on what off-brands you can find, because of the extra surfactants and softeners used. But for cleaning yourself and general surfaces most generic soap works exactly like the stuff that can cost several times as much.
I’ll back up the vinegar in a spray bottle and free newspaper being the best for cleaning windows. The vinegar smell goes away in a couple minutes and it doesn’t leave streaks.
It also works the other way around, if you choose to spend your money on cheap supplies (because you are shortsighted) it will cost you more money in the long run.
A lot of people need to learn how to use their money effectively, and budgeting can help for some.
There are no individualist solutions to systemic problems. Voting with your wallet is a lie, and ethical consumerism is a joke. You cannot fault someone who lives paycheck to paycheck, or people saving up for their kids’ college education, or paying down their chemo debt, for buying at the cheaper store, which Dollar Tree typically is, compared to local operations. The only solution here is strict government imposed regulation, and going “no u” at consumers is counterproductive as it only serves as a distraction from the real problem.
Generally the slightly more expensive shit is cheaper in the long run that’s the thing. And some people choose to spend more money buying shit om Amazon/Aliexpress/Wish etc instead of buying something similar locally.
Not Just Bikes makes a great video how the cheaper options like Walmart are actively destroying America. Partially because they more their profits to a company outside the US and partially because they remove jobs.
But yeah, shit is hard to fix in corrupt countries.
Generally the slightly more expensive shit is cheaper in the long run that’s the thing
I hear what you’re saying, I really am, but please be aware that you’re coming from a place of privilege, and that this kind of line hits just as tone deaf as telling a single mother working three jobs to feed her kids that “gee don’t you know it’s better to have a varied home cooked diet than microwave Mac and cheese?” Ultimately you’re putting the blame on the communities themselves with this kind of argument, which plays exactly into the personal responsibility myth that places like Dollar Tree and Shell live on. You’re distracting from actual solutions by doing this. It does the same as what carbon footprint and recycling do for oil companies, which is distract from real solutions.
Telling people to buy more expensive shit would work if there weren’t gigantic swathes of the population who literally cannot . They can’t do this. It is not possible. And then there’s the part of the population that won’t. It is not a solution. And Shell and Dollar tree understand this, and they welcome your free propaganda to distract from raising the minimum wage, corporate taxes, and enshrining workers rights. You’re damaging the cause. You truly are.
Yea you are right some people cannot do that, but there are a shit ton of people in first world non corrupt countries who literally waste money.
Some people need to hear that buying the cheapest thing is the right to do when they don’t have a choice, but some other group of people need the financial advice to do shit properly.
Telling people that buying the cheapest thing is good for some, but financially hurting others who can afford to spend 5 bucks instead of 1 on a better knife or whatnot.
We can have a whole other discussion about raising minimum wage cause that will drive costs up in certain sectors even more. Government’s need to step in and increase minimum INCOME. UBI etc.
Edit: i have seen people waste money on terrible products when they could afford better. There is a group of people who has the money but never really learned how to save and spend it properly to get the most out if it. Buying plastic plates every week or so is way more expensive than buying an actual plate.
How did we get rid of the hole in the ozone layer? Did we all individually cut down on our individual halocarbon usage, saw the hole shrink, and all held hands and sang kumbaya? No, we listened to scientists, and we took action on a government regulation level, and we solved it. Now compare that to oil companies wrecking the planet. We went the individualist route there, and it’s done nothing to solve the problem. You’re even admitting yourself that your individualist fairy tale nonsense is a distraction! “We can have a whole other discussion about raising minimum wage” (emphasis mine).
Sorry but I don’t follow you.
But yes we should listen to sciencists and other experts.
The minimum wage thing I can explain, in companies where a big part of the direct cost is the wage of the people working there (the service industries like restaurants or accountants etc). Increasing the wage will also increase the price of the services (or goods) they sell. If costs go up they will either have to eat the loss, which is unsustainable or increase prices. Which is what a lot of restaurants have been doing especially since covid. Hence we are paying 3,5+ € for a beer here in The Netherlands.
A way to fix this is to give those people who need it suplemental income using social security. Same way as that the government here in NL pays companies money when they have somebody on parantal leave.
Another downside of reasining the minimum income is that in a lot of countries and or companies the higher wages are based on minimum wage. Often adding a certain percentage on top. So raising the minimum wage will also increase those.
I am all for everyone being able to afford all the basic plus have money extra for fun shir and that’s why I am all for an universal income, but I don’t dig the minimum wage income. However, minimum wage should increase at minimum with inflation until there is a UBI and then even that should increase with inflation.
This is tax fraud on multiple layers, the executives at dollar tree consprired to siphon federal funds to underpay workers, embezzlement to line their own pockets.
Well, they won’t have to worry about relying on medicaid or food stamps anymore
Why not?
Because the government will revoke their access to such aid.
Because of the revolution
Some poor/working class person will still tell the workers to pull themselves up by the bootstraps. Because some folks are brainwashed by corpo propaganda.
The kroger ceo makes like 15 mil
Employees should have to approve executive salary
Agreed. Employees should also have ownership in the company via profit sharing or ESOP.
If the internet has taught me anything, it’s that would be a bad idea.
I agree that executives make FAR beyond what they should.
What would end up happening is the internet would be trolls, and say the executives either make 500 billion per day, OR they make 1 penny per year.
Both of which mean every single company folds very quickly. Which means no more electricity. No more water. No more grocery stores.
I think a healthier solution is to regulate the concept of capitolism so it ties the whole of an industry (not the individual companies) to be only able to charge what the lowest tax bracket can afford. Then tax the wealthy the highest, and the poor the lowest.
I’m not saying the internet. I’m saying the employees at the firm. Your coworkers you have the chance to face on a daily basis
Which means no more electricity. No more water. No more grocery stores.
Perhaps neither of these should be for profit companies?
Absolutely, but even the most generous of non-profits have to pay their executives something
It doesn’t have to be ridiculous multiples of the lowest pay.
Why?
Executives are paid a lot just for the lols.
I can’t recall a single big company CEO that actually warranted the big paycheck. There are some very capable people, but even still.
Public utility doesn’t need any risk taking, other than some investments into possible new technologies, but they just need to maintain the existing infrastructure and build new one according to plans.
I didn’t say they deserve the big enormous paychecks. But they do need to be paid. They still have bills that need paid and food to put on the table.
I’d be okay capping it to like 2x the median salary at the company. But if we leave it up to a vote it’d be $0/year because of people like you.
I would suggest paying everyone the same. Janitor, CEO, doctors, etc.
If everyone has the same money, we will be equal. Ideally even people who can’t work.
And stop producing wasteful shit. Stop advertisment, that alone would change the world for the better. Stop capitalism while we’re at it.
And give everyone the same baseline quality of life until we can guarantee it for everyone and forever.
Then we can talk about who gets paid more.
A better idea is to legislate that CEOs etc can only earn, for example, 5x the amount the lowest paid full time worker receives.
No. Just… factually and wholly no. Companeiies can easily function without CEOs. To think an ENTIRE COMPNAY would collapse bwcause of an executive is the kind of brain worms the rich want you to have.
Please… grow up and realize every single laborer is more important than every single CEO. Ever. Period.
So you are saying republicans don’t actually have a problem with socialism?
“Socialise the cost. Privatise the profits” is the motto.
Its communism for the rich at this point.
It’s kind of infuriating that if you’re wealthy you basically get basic income. You can put some of your money in safe stuff (high yield savings, bonds, whatever) and just get more money without working. But a poor person needs to debase themselves for food.
unless we start charging a few million for infants then who would pay for the system oter than those that “worked” for their socialism?
There are many approaches to this problem, but as a reminder and context setter I’d like you to look at “wealth to scale” https://dbkrupp.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/
“Dollar Tree” is an existing company?! I thought first (I read top to bottom) that it was a metaphor for a company that makes money “like a tree”.
It’s a store in the US that sells most stuff for $1, for context. Or $1.25 now apparently
John Oliver did a piece on dollar stores about a year ago, if you’re interested https://youtu.be/p4QGOHahiVM
They tried to merge with “Family Dollar” after they were outbid by “Dollar General” but it didn’t go through. Just a cheap convenience store.
Actual journalists would have the easiest time in this timeline
Some More News, and The Humanist Report are making a lot of money being actual journalists. Last Week Tonight, and to a lesser extent The Daily Show are also trying to report what the MSM is ignoring. Perhaps you just aren’t looking for the real journalism?
Let’s not pretend actual journalism is alive and well when you have ro cite a comedy show as journalists… I agree they do real journalism, but think of how sad the state of affairs is.
This is exactly why I can’t really trust main stream cooperate media anymore. They don’t do anything now days. They so often just take things at face value.
Astaghfirullah wtf is ur minimum wage, I’m pretty sure ur inflation is a lot worse than most countries with MUCH higher wages as well 💀
Minimum wage nationwide in America is $7.25 an hour. Well below poverty line.
Bro I visited NY once and got slapped with the most extortionate prices (excluding VAT ofc), even when converted to my home currency. Considering the dollar’s weaker 7.25 an hour is a joke ting, especially since the prices were WAY higher.
New York state it is $15.50 NYC area $16.5 most states have a higher minimum wage except the deep red states
