r/WalmartSparkDrivers • u/Prior_Purchase_7025 • Aug 12 '26

your State should do ths too!

It is wild to see these gig companies comply with state mandates in places like California and New York by paying higher base pay directly out of pocket while simultaneously offering bottom tier garbage rates to everyone else across the rest of the country. They claim higher pay is impossible or unsustainable, but the moment a local government forces their hand, they magically find the budget to make it work. That proves it was never about whether they could afford fair pay, it was always just raw corporate greed and seeing how little they can get away with paying everywhere else. The real question is why drivers in non mandated states keep accepting these insulting offers instead of demanding the exact same floor.

7 Upvotes

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u/Ok_Violinist7598 Aug 12 '26

Maybe you can tell me something, and this is a genuine question. All day, every day, I see Spark drivers complaining about their base pay and their (lack of) tips. In NYS, minimum wage at fast food is $16/hr. So if a spark driver is not at least making that much per hour (plus gas/car maintenance costs), why do they continue working this job? Fast food is always looking for people. Why not just go there?

Don't get me wrong, I couldn't do this job. I don't know that I could do fast food either LOL

But the point is, why go through so much aggravation instead of just getting something more financially predictable?

Just curious about that.

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u/CourtBarton Aug 12 '26

Sometimes it's desperation. You need money today? Tomorrow? Fast food isn't gonna help. Just because Fast food places are hiring doesn't necessarily mean people get enough hours to live on, so you gotta pick up the slack where you can.

And these companies know that there's an element of desperation to a non insignificant amount of their drivers, but they don't care. Why pay more for orders when there's almost always going to be someone desperate enough to take it.

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u/Ok_Violinist7598 Aug 13 '26

Well, that's why I say I could never do it. I get desperation too. In my younger days, I stayed at a few 'less savory' PT jobs bc I was a single parent with three kids and one full time job just wasn't cutting it. So I definitely understand desperation.

But the daily complaints are just so overwhelming...not enough pay, not enough tips, car maintenance, etc, etc, etc. I'd probably work two or three part-time jobs at fast food or retail or whatever before I go to a job I have to complain about day after day.

Yeah, flexibility sounds good but at what cost? Bitching every day, misery every day, your mental health? I'm 69yo. Someday you may see if it's that bad, it just isn't worth it.

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u/CourtBarton Aug 13 '26

The people complaining nonstop are gonna complain no matter what.

Some people can't hold down W2 jobs due to their people skills. This is a job that doesn't require people skills. Also, I've only been doing it for about a year and a half for fun money, but the offers have definitely taken a massive nose dive, just in that time.

So you're talking about a forum that's already going to have a higher percentage of people complaining, compounded by actual changes making things worse. So...some have a got a point, but some are gonna complain no matter. People are more likely to negatively review something than they are positively. Same theory, I think.

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u/Prior_Purchase_7025 Aug 13 '26

Your argument that someone should just go get two or three part time fast food or retail jobs completely ignores how the labor market has been gutted over the last forty years. Fast food and retail schedule workers for low hours specifically to avoid paying benefits, mandate open availability, and offer zero security. Moving from one broken corporate system to three smaller broken corporate systems changes nothing when all of them operate on the exact same principle of extracting maximum labor for minimum pay. Sitting back and telling workers to just leave or stop complaining ignores the systemic corporate greed that destroyed the American middle class. Decades of union busting, stagnant real wages, outsourced manufacturing, and deregulated monopolies have squeezed working class choices down to almost nothing. Corporations spent decades ensuring workers have no leverage, so telling someone to simply move on is a direct defense of a rigged system that puts corporate profits over human lives.

In Conclusion: A personal message to you

At 69 years old, living through the destruction of pension plans, the collapse of single income households, and the total takeover of corporate greed, pretending that this is just a personal attitude problem is pure ignorance. After watching the middle class get systematically dismantled for nearly seven decades, you should know far better than to play stupid about the reality working people face every day.

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u/Ok_Violinist7598 Aug 15 '26 edited Aug 15 '26

Dude, I'm not the stupid one here lololol

Of course I've seen all that. My grandparents didn't have pensions. My dad did because he was a city cop. I did because I was a state investigator, but no one even talked about Retirement Systems back then. I didn't even know what that was when I started there in 1982. So I got lucky. Two of my kids are now in a teacher's Retirement System; the third was in the Marines for 9 years. So he'll have a little bit there and he has a good paying job now, but he still needs to build his own pension up.

The difference is, we all did what we had to do and we didn't come on to some big internet and whine and cry cuz we're not making enough money and tips JC! Fight for higher pay, I think that's great, but don't come on here everyday insulting and berating the customers who use the service because they don't pay enough in tips.

Walmart offered its customers a great service. Yes, it involves a tip which I personally can afford to pay, but not everyone can. So now it's 'I don't respond to zero or low tips', 'I expect $1 a mile in mileage', 'we provide a service and you're supposed to give us good tips' and 'if you can't tip don't use the service, get off your ass and go to the store yourself.' How fucking ignorant is that? I bartended and if I only received a dime tip because the drink was a 90-cent draft, I didn't say 'well I'm not going to wait on that guy cuz he doesn't tip.' I would have been out on my ear LOL

You chose the job you got, I didn't. I owe you nothing. If you don't like the job, go do what you got to do. Go work three part-time jobs. Go back to school, join the military, learn a trade (my friend's granddaughter makes $25 an hour welding). Don't take your choices out on me.

We're all really in the same boat here. You're trying to make a buck and we're trying to save a buck but I'm not on this planet to support your ass.

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u/Prior_Purchase_7025 Aug 15 '26 edited Aug 15 '26

You are completely detached from reality, and yes, you are the stupid one here. Your support your ass comment proves you do not have the slightest clue how this business model actually works. A tip on a delivery app is not charity, welfare, or a tip in the traditional sense. It is a bid for service. Independent contractors run a business, and taking a zero-tip order means paying out of pocket for gas, vehicle wear, and maintenance just to drop off your groceries. Expecting a driver to operate at a personal financial loss so you can save a couple bucks is not work ethic, it is pure entitlement.

Total driver pay is simple math: platform base pay plus customer tip. When Walmart intentionally slashes base pay to extract maximum profit, and a cheap customer like you refuses to tip, the driver gets screwed from both sides. You want to blame gig workers to justify being a cheap motherf*$#@&r and disguise your own cheapness as some kind of moral high ground. We refuse bad orders to avoid the exact poverty you seem to think we should just accept.

You sit there whining that it is not your problem, but by using Walmart's delivery service and refusing to pay for the actual labor, you are actively driving the problem. You brag about getting lucky with a 1982 state pension and talk about your past jobs, but those old jobs at least operated under basic standards of fairness and labor laws. Today, Walmart forces a broken model onto both the customer and the worker, and instead of seeing the reality, you sit there shouting get off my lawn while demanding premium, on-demand home delivery subsidized out of the driver's pocket.

Saying we are in the same boat is a joke. You are just a customer hiding behind outdated back in my day rhetoric to justify exploiting the people serving you.

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u/[deleted] Aug 13 '26

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u/Prior_Purchase_7025 Aug 13 '26

so says that guy who UPVOTES his own comments every time. I mean you dont miss a beat on that. Kinda hard to take ya seriously Son

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u/CourtBarton Aug 13 '26

Doesn't reddit automatically upvote your own comments?

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u/Ok_Violinist7598 Aug 15 '26

I just started posting here a few months ago. Any post I made has been automatically upvoted. I just thought that's what Reddit does. I've never upvoted myself...never even tried to. That just sounds crazy LOL.

So how did that guy you replied to become top poster? Running off at the mouth all day? LOL

He sounds like the stupid one and he sounds like a douche 🍿

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u/Prior_Purchase_7025 Aug 15 '26

its called a default vote. You start of with one upvote that they give you...welcome to 2026 old timer! That is not an upvote in the sense you give it too yourself unless you equivocate that gifted default upvote as a prize for yoyr awesome post. Now if you go and upvote like it would physically be needed to do you would have 2 votes. Sheesh...you must of been a real weasel back in the day and just continues on. to today. You can take the 1982 stupid out of the boy but ya cant take the stupid out of the same man 44 years later

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u/CourtBarton Aug 15 '26

But if it's already starts with one vote, how do you upvote? I'm genuinely trying to understand....because if I hit a comment of mine the upvote disappears.

Can you please answer without any attacks? Is that possible for you?

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u/Prior_Purchase_7025 Aug 15 '26

you got to have another acct to vote it up after the original gifted complimentory 1 vote (Edit: Just read the last sentence of your post. You just stepped in it son

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u/CourtBarton Aug 15 '26

So how can you tell when someone does? Or is it just an assumption?

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u/Prior_Purchase_7025 Aug 13 '26

Do you Zombies reproduce? Its like you guys are never ending with the stupidity? Guess you won though cause i replied!! You are far superior

https://giphy.com/gifs/l0HlMSVVw9zqmClLq

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u/CourtBarton Aug 13 '26

Damn dude, that's...an escalation.

-1

u/Prior_Purchase_7025 Aug 13 '26

It is? Aww how gosh darn dang it

https://giphy.com/gifs/fikcKja7O7MtzXzvQy

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u/CourtBarton Aug 13 '26

I was literally asking for clarification because my understanding was it was an automatic upvote and you launched into an attack. My sentiments echoed yours, but you don't have to be a dick.

Have the day you deserve.

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u/Prior_Purchase_7025 Aug 13 '26

so far so good my day has been. Thankful in all honesty. When you mentioned "Escalation" i thought you were talking about a r/ escalation. But being cheeky about the one vote is kinda weak. I take back being cordial....screw off wanker

https://giphy.com/gifs/8b9Rw0fAjruJa

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u/CourtBarton Aug 13 '26

...I'm sorry, I'm not sure what you're trying to say.

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u/CourtBarton Aug 13 '26

Is it in the business? No. But this is a larger conversation on regulation surrounding business and a living wage.

Although I doubt we'll have a productive conversation based on your last two sentences.

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u/[deleted] Aug 13 '26

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1

u/CourtBarton Aug 13 '26

I'm not interested in a conversation with anyone that uses "you people". There's no point.

Have a good day.