Income inequality colors retailers’ expectations
The imposition of mandatory work on Thanksgiving for low-wage workers at Wal-Mart and other big-box retailers has attracted extensive media coverage, spotlighting how the holiday season is less than merry for many low-paid workers.
But another effect of America’s inequality is becoming visible in retailers’ plans for sales during the holiday season.
Widespread wage-cutting [discussed at “The War on Wages” at https://znetwork.org/the-war-on-wages-by-roger-bybee.html and numerous other articles] and a drop in median household income –from $54,000 in 2008 to $51,017 at present, five years later–are shaping retailers’ expectations for the 2013 Christmas season. This is resulting in the stores planning to offer steep discounts to attract low- and moderate-income consumers in order to stave off a disastrous holiday season.
From an article by Cotten Timberlake originally appearing in Bloomberg News, which can be found at http://www.jsonline.com/business/stores-alter-holiday-sales-to-prep-for-weak-shopping-season-b99146245z1-232605621.html:
“The disparity between wealthy and lower-income shoppers is already showing up in chains' fourth-quarter profit estimates, with Tiffany & Co. projected to fare better than Walmart and Menomonee Falls [Wisconsin]-based Kohl's Corp…. [emphasis added]
“Last month, consumer sentiment slipped to a nine-month low, colored in part by the U.S. government shutdown and debt-ceiling debate. Higher payroll taxes and uneven job growth also have undermined confidence. Shoppers have been spending less on such discretionary purchases as clothes this year as they purchased autos and home-related merchandise instead. [emphasis added]
"The consumer is more deal-driven than ever," Ken Perkins, president of researcher Retail Metrics LLC, wrote in a Nov. 14 note. "Discretionary dollars for holiday spending are limited for the large pool of lower- and moderate-income consumers due to lack of wage gains this year coupled with the increased payroll tax." [emphasis added]
I'm teaching in Labor Studies at Penn State and the University of Illinois in on-line classes. I've been continuing with my work as freelance writer, with my immediate aim to complete a book on corporate media coverage of globalization (tentatively titled The Giant Sucking Sound: How Corporate Media Swallowed the Myth of Free Trade.) I write frequently for Z, The Progressive Magazine's on-line site, The Progressive Populist, Madison's Isthmus alternative weekly, and a variety of publications including Yes!, The Progressive, Foreign Policy in Focus, and several websites.Ā I've been writing a blog on labor issues for workinginthesetimes.com, turning out over 300 pieces in the past four years.My work specializes in corporate globalization, labor, and healthcare reform... I've been a progressive activist since the age of about 17, when I became deeply affected by the anti-war and civil rights movements. I entered college at University of Wisconsin Milwaukee just days after watching the Chicago police brutalize anti-war demonstrators at the Democratic Convention of 1968. I was active in a variety of "student power" and anti-war activities, highlighted by the May, 1970 strike after the Nixon's invastion of Cambodia and the massacres at Kent State and Jackson State. My senior year was capped by Nixon's bombing of Haiphong Harbor and the occupation of a university building, all in the same week I needed to finish 5-6 term papers to graduate, which I managed somehow. My wife Carolyn Winter, whom I met in the Wisconsin Alliance, and I have been together since 1975, getting officially married 10/11/81. Carolyn, a native New Yorker, has also been active for social justice since her youth (she attended the famous 1963 Civil Rights march where Dr. King gave his "I have a dream speech"). We have two grown children, Lane (with wife Elaine and 11-year-old grandson Zachary, who introduced poker to his classmates during recess)Ā living in Chicago and Rachel (who with her husband Michael have the amazing Talia Ruth,5, who can define "surreptitious" for you) living in Asbury Park, NJ. My sister Francie lives down the block from me. I'm a native of the once-heavily unionized industrial city of Racine, Wis. (which right-wingers sneeringly labeled "Little Moscow" during the upheavals of the 1930's), and both my grandfathers were industrial workers and Socialists. On my father's side, my grandfather was fired three times for Socialist or union activity. His family lost their home at one point during the Depression. My mom's father was a long-time member of UAW Local 72 at American Motors, where he worked for more than 30 years. Coming from impoverished families, my parents met throughĀ a very low-cost form of recreation: Racine's Hiking Club.
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