LA Times: Is Disney Paying Its Fair Share In Anaheim

[flynnibus]

They raised park prices and got rid of the ticket system. Disneyland was not profitable since Walt died

You have some cite for that? Because my understanding is far different. The problem Disney had at the time was being undervalued - not that they were losing money. The great weakness in that period was the lost studio portion. People questioned Disney's aggressive expansion into EPCOT when the country had been struggling with recession and the outlook for tourism wasn't hot... but lack of profits wasn't the issue. It was that Disney's stock was depressed.. making it ripe for takeover and breakup. And why they brought in a studio exec to be the CEO... it was the studio side of Disney that was the main issue. They looked at the parks and found them undervalued, so they started charging more, expanding, etc.

 

[Deleted member 107043]

Disneyland was not profitable since Walt died.

Huh??

 

[Travel Junkie]

Defenders of Disney and other corporations paying low wages argue that these are entry level jobs and that that you aren't meant to stay in them forever.

http://money.cnn.com/2018/05/17/news/economy/us-middle-class-basics-study/index.html

As this article highlights 66% of all U.S. jobs pay under $20 per hour. Nearly half of all families can't afford basic necessities like food and rent.

When most of the jobs are not paying a decent wage you can't simply move on from Disney or any other "entry level" job onto something else. Some in this thread have blamed the CM's for just not getting another job. It's far from that simple and the gap is increasing between the have and have nots.

 

[Disney Irish]

Defenders of Disney and other corporations paying low wages argue that these are entry level jobs and that that you aren't meant to stay in them forever.

http://money.cnn.com/2018/05/17/news/economy/us-middle-class-basics-study/index.html

As this article highlights 66% of all U.S. jobs pay under $20 per hour. Nearly half of all families can't afford basic necessities like food and rent.

When most of the jobs are not paying a decent wage you can't simply move on from Disney or any other "entry level" job onto something else. Some in this thread have blamed the CM's for just not getting another job. It's far from that simple and the gap is increasing between the have and have nots.

All true, and all good points. However its not just as simple as raising the minimum wage as some here have tried to allude. The one question that this study doesn't answer is why are these workers are stuck in low wage jobs. It can't be just because there aren't jobs out there, there are plenty just not in the industries these workers are trained in.

Its a new world economy, workers can no longer work their entire life in jobs like service or manufacturing like in the 1950-90s and expect to retire well off at 65. Despite what the current President campaigned on, we aren't going to get a robust economy from old technologies like coal or steel. For example coal only accounted for 52k and steel for 147k jobs across the nation in 2017. And we shouldn't want that as a country. If we really want to be a world leader as a country in the future, then workers need to be retrained for the jobs of the future not try to rely on the jobs of the last century. This is why I'm all for free college, especially for any worker displaced by the global economy.

I'm all for raising the minimum wage but done so smartly, and not as the only tactic. Raising the minimum wage should be part of a larger strategy to combat wage stagnation. It should be combined with housing initiatives that combat homelessness and caps prices, college programs that retrain workers, and caps on healthcare and childcare costs. Doing this overall strategy will raise those 43% out of poverty.

 

[October82]

All true, and all good points. However its not just as simple as raising the minimum wage as some here have tried to allude. The one question that this study doesn't answer is why are these workers are stuck in low wage jobs. It can't be just because there aren't jobs out there, there are plenty just not in the industries these workers are trained in. [...]

This is a really nice post, but I think it is missing something crucial. Wages aren't what they should be for both high and low skill workers.

 

[Deleted member 107043]

This is a really nice post, but I think it is missing something crucial. Wages aren't what they should be for both high and low skill workers.

Yep.

Nearly 51 million households don't earn enough to afford a monthly budget that includes housing, food, child care, health care, transportation and a cell phone, according to a study released Thursday by the United Way ALICE Project. That's 43% of households in the United States.

http://money.cnn.com/2018/05/17/news/economy/us-middle-class-basics-study/index.html

 

[vancee]

Just watched this. Every time I stay on the concierge level at DLH, Glynndana is there. She is always nice! Sad to see her living conditions, I feel bad now .

 

[Disney Irish]

This is a really nice post, but I think it is missing something crucial. Wages aren't what they should be for both high and low skill workers.

Yep.

Nearly 51 million households don't earn enough to afford a monthly budget that includes housing, food, child care, health care, transportation and a cell phone, according to a study released Thursday by the United Way ALICE Project. That's 43% of households in the United States.

http://money.cnn.com/2018/05/17/news/economy/us-middle-class-basics-study/index.html

Which again goes back to the points in my post and really what I've been trying to say in this thread, you can't just raise the minimum wage. You have to tackle the overall wage stagnation issue. It applies to both high and low skill workers. As I said in my last paragraph:

"Raising the minimum wage should be part of a larger strategy to combat wage stagnation. It should be combined with housing initiatives that combat homelessness and caps prices, college programs that retrain workers, and caps on healthcare and childcare costs. Doing this overall strategy will raise those 43% out of poverty."

 

[flynnibus]

Yep.

Nearly 51 million households don't earn enough to afford a monthly budget that includes housing, food, child care, health care, transportation and a cell phone, according to a study released Thursday by the United Way ALICE Project. That's 43% of households in the United States.

http://money.cnn.com/2018/05/17/news/economy/us-middle-class-basics-study/index.html

Well... paying for day care for two (which is what this study does) is far from living thriftly. Health care costs fuel a huge portion of this as well.

 

[Deleted member 107043]

Which again goes back to the points in my post and really what I've been trying to say in this thread, you can't just raise the minimum wage. You have to tackle the overall wage stagnation issue. It applies to both high and low skill workers. As I said in my last paragraph:

"Raising the minimum wage should be part of a larger strategy to combat wage stagnation. It should be combined with housing initiatives that combat homelessness and caps prices, college programs that retrain workers, and caps on healthcare and childcare costs. Doing this overall strategy will raise those 43% out of poverty."

 

[Disney Irish]

Pot meet kettle

 

[SuddenStorm]

Yep.

Nearly 51 million households don't earn enough to afford a monthly budget that includes housing, food, child care, health care, transportation and a cell phone, according to a study released Thursday by the United Way ALICE Project. That's 43% of households in the United States.

http://money.cnn.com/2018/05/17/news/economy/us-middle-class-basics-study/index.html

That article is sensationalized. Copied from a reddit comment on the same article (link at the bottom):

Being a data scientist by trade, I'm always interested to see how certain numbers are expressed or calculated, just so I can see if it's apparent that a certain story is trying to be told.
For example, they specifically pull out "Seattle's King County" when concluding that a household needs to pull in a bit more than $40/hr to "survive", but when comparing that to the actual number of jobs that pay that much, they use "Washington State" as the benchmark, a state that is largely rural EXCEPT for the Seattle area. In fact, Seattle's mean hourly wage is over $30/hr, considerably higher than the US average.
Also interesting in that point is that they neglect the idea of a two-income household, where two people could each make $21/hr and easily meet that "survivable" threshold for living in King County. They do this, even though they have factored child-care in as one of the contributing costs. Do they imagine that one parent is just sitting at home all day doing nothing? The households for which child care is a necessity are those that are typically bringing in two paychecks, and thus far less likely to be in this vulnerable part of the population, yet CNN has presented no breakdown of this.
I think that this is pretty misrepresenting, and I think it's intentional. Headlines like "Only X% of Americans have any savings" "X% of Americans can't afford Y" are largely clickbait, because news outlets have figured out that it works.

Heres a link to the post: Reddit

 

[Deleted member 107043]

That article is sensationalized. Copied from a reddit comment on the same article (link at the bottom):



Heres a link to the post: Reddit

Are you disputing the data from the United Way study?

 

[SuddenStorm]

Are you disputing the data from the United Way study?

I'm suggesting that the article and data might have been written, gathered, and represented in a way to achieve a desired results and tell a story, as others on that comment and post did a better job than I ever could explaining.

 

[flynnibus]

That article is sensationalized.

Come-on... we can't actually expect people to READ their sources can we??

I don't think the study is 'sensationalized' as much as its positioning is a bit skewed. Here Hans tries to position it to infer that a large portion of the population is down n out... more than people realize.

This study is not about how many people are in poverty or behind the eightball, it tries to define a new benchmark in living standard and measure the population against it. So a critical concept is 'well what is that benchmark'?? And like the reddit and other people who actually read the methodology of the study know (Like I did)... the benchmark it defines is actually pretty damn high.

I'm very successful, and I can say for sure for more than half my life I could not meet the benchmark they set. Daycare is crazy expensive, so my wife stayed home instead. Healthcare costs are insane now... That problem is about HC, not wages. Etc, etc, etc.

 

[flynnibus]

Are you disputing the data from the United Way study?

You should actually try READING IT

 

[Darkbeer1]

https://www.ocregister.com/2018/05/...ad-of-proposed-ballot-measure-to-raise-wages/

>>
Sen. Bernie Sanders, a vocal critic of the Walt Disney Co. since his 2016 presidential campaign, is coming to Anaheim to meet with workers from businesses in and around the Disneyland Resort.


Sanders will be in town Saturday, June 2, for a roundtable-type event where he’ll talk with a selection of people from a variety of industries that serve the theme park, nearby hotels and other related businesses, said Andrew Cohen, a spokesman for Unite Here Local 11. The event at River Church is open to the public.


Unite Here is one of 11 unions in a coalition that is backing an initiative that would raise wages for workers at hospitality businesses – including Disney – that have received subsidies from Anaheim. The ballot measure seeks to raise wages at affected businesses to at least $15 an hour in 2019 and to $18 an hour by 2022.<<

>>
A collection of business and community groups including Visit Anaheim, the California Restaurant Association and the Anaheim Chamber of Commerce have come out against the ballot proposal, calling it a “job killer” they say would cause developers to flee and the city to lose jobs and revenue.


“If this measure qualifies for the ballot, it will be an important issue that will give Anaheim residents a lot to think about, given its impact on jobs and investment in our community,” Anaheim chamber CEO Todd Ament said Friday.

“It’s hard to see how a former presidential candidate and U.S. senator from Vermont contributes to that process, rather than just grandstanding on a local issue for his own purposes,” Ament said<<

 

[Deleted member 107043]

I'm suggesting that the article and data might have been written, gathered, and represented in a way to achieve a desired results and tell a story, as others on that comment and post did a better job than I ever could explaining.

You're certainly entitled to your opinion, but even if United Way's data is bunk that alone doesn't negate the fact that Disney has deliberately depressed wages at DLR and that Disney is actively lobbying to keep them that way.

 

[Deleted member 107043]

A collection of business and community groups including Visit Anaheim, the California Restaurant Association and the Anaheim Chamber of Commerce have come out against the ballot proposal, calling it a “job killer” they say would cause developers to flee and the city to lose jobs and revenue.

This isn't a surprise. How many businesses are going to unite to pay workers more?

The Chamber of Commerce and its local affiliates will always defer to its corporate backers. Corporate political spending on lobbying and elections is their forte, therefore social responsibility, including saving the environment and paying higher wages, aren't issues it endorses.

 

[DanielBB8]

There’s 4 options if the ballot proposal passes.

1. Build it and pay workers more money.

2. Cancel it.

3. Refuse the city incentive and downgrade the project as a 3 to 4 star project with a much lower budget, but charge near luxury prices.

4. Sue to get it overturned.