If you ever find yourself in a secondhand store questioning whether or not an item is overpriced, chances are it is. Now, if you ever find yourself holding a plain cotton T-shirt with stains near the armpits and a hole in the front, priced for $7 like I did, the chances are very high that you my friend, are in Goodwill.
Oh, but no need to worry...all the money you spend and the items you donate are fighting unemployment and underemployment among veterans, military families, those with disabilities and single mothers.
If you go to the Goodwill website they will be sure and tell you that “maximizing the value of your donations is important” to them. They will also explain how everything you donate is taken to directly to one of the Goodwill stores or is sold on their online auction site, where the money helps to fund job training and “other services” that are left unsaid. This last year alone, they reported that “your donated stuff has helped Goodwill get 33,083 people back to work.” This is all really great news, but there a few things that the Goodwill website won’t tell you.
For starters, they fail to mention that in several different locations, they have opened up what are known as Goodwill Boutiques. You may be asking, what is a Goodwill Boutique exactly? Well basically, all of the nice and more expensive items that end up getting donated are picked out and placed in these absurd shops that I feel shouldn’t even be able to go by the name “Goodwill.”
Very frequently I will pass by one of these so called thrift stores that is close to where I live and each time, I have to take a second glance just to make sure I’m reading the sign correctly. Designer boots, leather jackets, brand new jeans -- this place reminds me of being near some kind of fancy exhibit as a child when you’re told only to look and not touch. If these details aren’t intimidating enough, you can even find a security guard lurking near the entrance. Man, they sure are keeping their promise to “maximize your donations.”
One woman spoke in her blog about how she used to shop at Goodwill when she worked there in high school, but how the products are too pricey for her to afford anymore. She said she found bed frames priced for $600 and a dresser priced for $200. One picture she posted featured a red clearance sticker from Target that read $4.48 on a shirt, but Goodwill had it priced as $5.99. There were also other miscellaneous items like a cake stand, asking $15.
It makes me wonder what lower-income families must feel like when they pass by a Goodwill Boutique or go to get their children school clothes with the little amount of money they have for that month, and find nothing in their price range. If I, a young adult who adores fashion, am intimidated by these things, than I just can’t imagine how someone in actual need must feel. Because Goodwill can provide all the jobs in the world, but if in the end they aren’t providing for their community then I don’t know if I really want to shop there anymore.
No longer do you hear of people walking out with the same excitement they used to because of a killer deal they just got on the winter jacket they’ve been in search of, or the toy their child has been wanting for a birthday gift that they found for half the price. Instead, people are walking out angry and upset because Goodwill has become just like any other large retailer, whose prices are outrageous, too expensive and seek only to make a profit.
I don’t necessarily agree with the jobs that they are providing either. According to a journalist from the Huffington Post in 2012, some of the workers at Goodwill were being paid less than minimum wage. Not just by small amounts either, but between 30 million different franchises across the country making $729,000 in salary and deferred compensation, there were people earning as little as 22 cents per hour.
Due to the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, Goodwill was given the ability to hire people with disabilities, which account for approximately 7,300 of their 105,000 employees. This would be great, if it wasn’t for the fact that a majority of these workers are treated unfairly through the practice of productivity assessments that determine their wage. This is the most ludicrous thing I have ever heard, since I would argue that those with disabilities are probably the most productive people in our world; because for every simple task a normal functioning person has to do, a disabled person has to work 10 times harder, and I guarantee that a lot of them even do it better. So if Goodwill wants to base how much they pay their workers by conducting monthly tests, then they need to do it for all of their employees...not just the disabled.
Let the company say whatever they wish, but until their actions change, I will continue to be under the belief that there is no good in Goodwill. We should all be taking our unwanted stuff to alternative spots, where we can be sure that our donations will help those in need and improve our communities as a whole.
