What's up with the American Dream - Essay Example

Wal-Mart was founded in 1962 by Sam Walton. It was incorporated in 1969 and began to publicly trade in the New York Stock Exchange in the year 1972. Currently, Wal-Mart runs 8,416 stores situated in 15 different countries. However, despite the success story of Wal-Mart Company, it has been faced with criticisms on how it treats its employees. For instance, from the essay of Karen Olsson, it is evident that many workers leave the company within their first days of work because of poor working environment and low wages.

In addition, the health plan of Wal-Mart Company is very poor or worse. For instance, Karen Olsson points out that the company deducts huge sum of money from each worker in order to compensate for their health insurance (Olsson 603). The pay of Wal-Mart is low and its demands are very high. Rather than assisting its employees, it encourages them to get Medicaid, public housing and public assistance in order to compensate for low wages or salaries. Wal-Mart employees struggle to live with these low salaries.

This treatment is against the American dream which is driven by the desire to see every American succeed in life without struggle. It is true that Wal-Mart provides health insurance but at higher cost of over $ 70 out of each paycheck. Due to its rapid expansion and growth, Wal-Mart sets the pace for benefits and salaries in the United State’s economy (Olsson 606). The standards that Wal-Mart sets are unacceptable. The pay is too low and it could adversely affect the U.S economy. For instance, average hourly pay is $ 7 which translates to $ 18,000 a year at a Corporation that makes a profit of over $ 6 billion annually.

Most of the workers at the company opt to ignore the health coverage of the company since it costs up to $ 2,500 per year. Further, it is hard for employees to get insurance cover for their children because of the increasing disparity between profits and wages. Wal-Mart has the moral responsibility to offer better working conditions and pay to its workers because they are the reason the company make profits. Sebastian in his essay argues that Wal-Mart is not progressive as its critics think. For instance, he states that most critics of Wal-Mart assert that Wal-Mart acts as a parasite in the sense that the company has five percent of its workers on Medicaid.

According to Mallaby (622), it is a typical level for large company, and most firms offer its employees four percent of health insurance. Because of the increasing income inequality, Wal-Mart should provide discounts on its food in order to boost the welfare of American shoppers. In addition, Wal-Mart should fight to offer the lowest prices on goods by maintaining the greatest quality o its products. Wal-Mart sets its prices quite lower than the average industry prices in order to win greater market share.

The firm makes all efforts to improve process efficiencies. However, it is important to note that Wal-Mart is the center of the globalised, technology drive company that has raised the level of income inequality as discussed in Robert Frank’s article. Customers expect organizations to operate in a moral way. Wal-Mart has to work with customers to produce quality products that are in line with the customer’s desires and expectations. Further, Wal-Mart Company has the moral responsibility to offer customers free access to data concerning their operation.

Social responsibility and code of conduct are created with the recognition that every activity that a company do is connected with their work. The Company should ensure that whatever activity they do, does not contravene the interest of the society. According to Mallaby (620), Wal-Mart might be assisting Americans fight health care inflation but at the same