Summary Of Up Against Wal-Mart By Karen Olsson

1577 Words7 Pages

According to a 2017 job survey, in America only 24% of employees are very satisfied with their jobs. (Jared Lindzon). This means in America over half of the employees are less satisfied or unsatisfied with their jobs. However, in order to survive, these people must continue to work where the jobs are available. One author who addresses this problem, is Karen Olsson in her article “Up Against Wal-Mart”. Americans are working hard labor and not getting a good salary. Many other countries believe that America is wealthy, but Americans are not. Also, people are suffering the jobs they do not like. In contrast to Olsson’s argument, another author Joseph E. Stiglitz “The top 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%” explain the top 1% people are getting richer …show more content…

She uses many real-life examples to explain how cruel society is. People always suffer from bad services from Walmart’s employees, but clients do not realized employees have unpaid extra working hours and poor benefits. For example, Olsson uses statistics shows readers how had salary Walmart’s employees earn, “The average hourly worker at Wal-Mart earns barely $18,000 a year at a company that picketed $6.6 billion in profits last year.” (Olsson). Wal-Mart employees are not getting paid enough for their hard workers. This statistic example has big number, and it is surprising to readers because Wal-Mart does not like to pay hard-working employees. Walmart owner Walton family scorn workers’ working, and Walton family does not realize labor consist his …show more content…

In Stiglitz’s essay, most of ideas are talking about how 1% people good life; people think the society to be equality of opportunity, and a sense of community, but it is an imagination. With Olsson’s help, we can see something new in Stiglitz’s observations. Stiglitz talks about inequality, “Some people look at income inequality and shrug their shoulders. So what if this person gains and that person loses? What matters, they argue, is not how the pie is divided but the size of the pie.” (Stiglitz) with Olsson’s ideas we can see inequality is everywhere even in the 99% people. A store manager would use little power or profit to control workers. Olsson helps readers to look at the society problem in another view, such as, between middle class to low class people exist monopoly issue. However, without Olsson, we just pay attention on high class people to monopolize opportunities. Olsson is important article to assist we to understand the inequality issue occur in 99%

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