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If this trend started in the 80's, then society has had 30 years to adjust. If people have not adjusted, then the problem is not with the stores but with something else.
We all know that you cannot live off of a job at McDonalds or the local book store. Maybe you could when it was more common to have one parent working, one at home, and people were not rushng out to buy the latest and greatest big screen TV, car, video game system, video game, or McMansion.
I would guess that it would be easier to live off of some of these jobs if people did not see a smart phone, cable, two cars, and brand name clothes as a neccessity.
I grew up in a middle class neighborhood in the 70's and 80's. Most of the mothers stayed home with the kids. Every year we went on vacations that were pretty nice. I had friends who rarely went on vacation with their familes because their parents spent money on clothes and cars. My parents could afford to put me and my siblings through college without taking loans, most of my compatriots had to take student loans.
The difference? My parents would not pay for us to have the coolest clothes and shoes and toys. They drove pretty practicle cars until they died. Yes, my Dad made a great living and they could afford all of that but they saved instead. We all benefited from that. Explaining that to use as teenagers would have been wasted but we get it now as adults.
And yet today there are people receiving assistance who are using cell phones and dressed in designer duds. I read stories about 1/3 of a town being on food stamps and the family worried about paying an $80 cell phone bill. I would love to say that these are rare cases but I have a feeling that they are not.
So yes, the change in who gets benefits and who does not from many years ago plays a role but so do individual choices. If you don't want to work at Walmart, stay in school or go back and get your GED. Go to the community college and get some training to get a better job. It is not easy but it is doable. Change how you live and live within your means.
It is easy to blame corporations, they are large faceless entities. There are some who appear to do things rights, like COSTCO and Target, but there are more who follow the letter of the law. Lets not count on a business interested in profit to do the right thing. Let's focus on the social problems that put people at the mercy of those businesses. Maybe if more people recieve the training they need and can move into the existing positions with good pay and benefits, the demand for people to fill the current temp jobs will move them from temp jobs to full time positions because that is how businesses are going to attract good candidates.
I guess my thought is simply this, we are not going to change business practices but we can change individual behavior. Why not empower the individual so that they don't need to worry about working at a warehouse run by Amazon.
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