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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe WaPo "fact-checker" needs to check his own facts
Glenn Kessler fell for Walmart's BS about paying workers $11 an hour, and claimed that AOC had "misfired" in minimum and living wages.
BUT HOW many hours do they get to work a week?
Online comments suggest that most of Walmart's rank and file get 16-30 hours a week.
The "138% of Federal poverty level" qualifies people for Medicaid in those states that have expanded that yet. For a family of 1, the 2018 limit was $16,753, or precisely 1523 Walmart hours. Over 52 weeks, that's 29.2 hours a week.
Did I mention that the ACA indicates that employees with 30 or more hours should be offered health insurance by their employers?
Simple! Make almost everyone work 29 hours and burden state Medicaid! ((sarcasm))
As for Amazon (also blasted by AOC), they do pay $13.50 an hour for their warehouse workers, but they would still have to work 1241 hours (or about 24 hours a week) to exceed the 138% of FPL. 40 hours a week for 52 weeks brings in $28,080, scarcely a living wage (which is what I think AOC meant to say).
((Disclaimer: I do volunteer tax work, and a lot of our customers don't even make 28K and relay on tax credit refunds to plug the hole. And some others never realized they had to set money aside for self-employment tax...))
JCanete
(5,272 posts)all about the conflict of interest WaPo has when weighing in on anything Amazon, even in the face of this kind of crap. Not saying it would have been better previously, cuz hey, its still corporate media that relies on ad revenue and interviews, etc...but jeeze.
True Dough
(17,305 posts)It should be a routine practice for them so readers can reach their own conclusions, or at least read with a skeptical eye.
What are your most trusted sources of journalism, out of curiosity?
JCanete
(5,272 posts)They all have a distinct world-view lens, and don't pretend that they don't, which is far healthier and honest than "neutral" journalism, since there's never any such thing.
Haven't listened to Hartmann in a while but I used to listen to him and Randi Rhodes, Maddow too. I don't watch enough, but Amy Goodman always seems awesome.
For investigative reporting and reporting of facts, the major institutions are still incredibly important in this way. While their biases are implicit in what they cover and how they cover it, they tend to protect their credibility as much as possible, so the actual facts being reported are likely to be solidly vetted, given that they have the manpower to do so. The facts that require much more nuanced understanding than a soundbite though, those seem far less important, so long as one presentation of "the facts" can simply be categorized as that person's personal analysis.
The intercept is not something I follow directly and I think it also wears some biases on its sleeve, some of which I'm not comfortable with, but as an independent source(or if not that, as a counter-establishment source of journalism) I'd say it definitely has its value.
True Dough
(17,305 posts)Never checked out the Minority Report or the Humanist Report. Will review their work sometime.
As for the Intercept, I've soured on Glenn Greenwald. Is he still an active contributor?
aidbo
(2,328 posts)Their live Friday show will be streaming on the YouTube channel I linked above soon at 12:00 Eastern.
dsc
(52,162 posts)Wellstone ruled
(34,661 posts)reaffirming what I have been saying and seeing for the last decade . Flunked Retirement five different times and worked those Part-Time considered full time jobs that are considered now full time.
Know of what you speak,volunteered last year at a Senior Center doing the same Tax Helper,every thing I suspected was bore out in fact.
TheBlackAdder
(28,208 posts)Apollyonus
(812 posts)PeeJ52
(1,588 posts)These are the ones that work in non-temperature controlled buildings for minimum wages as contractors for third parties for "logistic" companies that don't even have their own employees. It's all a shell game. They keep moving them around away from the reporters while they build these big shiny warehouses here and there. There is a reason for all these "employment agencies" that hire people for temp work with low wages and no benefits.
Denzil_DC
(7,242 posts)Too often they rely on appeals to authority: "Oh, they have a team of journalists on this, you can't argue with the WaPo and its impeccable journalistic standards" etc. etc.
Anyone who lays claim to absolute "fact" on debatable issues is setting themselves up for a fall except among those who have a vested interest - whatever that may be - in accepting their opinion, because so often that's all it is. In this case, the overriding motivation seems to be that everything's fine and how dare anyone challenge the status quo? There are many, many facts out there that need checking. Devaluing the practice with partisan claims to "fact" does nobody any favors and just muddies the field even further. A cynic might say that's the intention.
I recall Kessler dishing out a number of Pinocchios to President Obama during his term which were highly questionable (I was an active blogger at the the time on quite a popular US site, and conducted a number of counter-fact checks which were far more grounded in reality).
In his most recent "fact check", Kessler had the good grace to admit "The answer is not easily found." He then conveniently reframed the argument in his own terms in a way that furthered his own argument.
He also added "Disclosure: Jeffrey P. Bezos, Amazons chief executive, owns The Washington Post."
A simple acknowledgment of that isn't a "Get out of jail free card". It was used as a prelude to choosing the most favorable interpretation to Amazon.
ehrnst
(32,640 posts)Doing their job holding politicians accountable?
You have issues with that?
Response to ehrnst (Reply #12)
Post removed
ehrnst
(32,640 posts)Gotcha.
And that ignore feature can save you the distress of my "tiresome rhetoric" and "simplistic, self-serving negative gloss."
You're welcome.
Trumpocalypse
(6,143 posts)Thanks for posting.
FakeNoose
(32,645 posts)... and extra credit for your "volunteer tax work."
Helping low-income folks makes you a good American!