The 2.6 Billion Dollar Welfare Payment That The U.S. Government Gives To Wal-Mart

The Daily Coin ^ | 12/29/2014 | Michael Snyder

[cincinnati65]

IF Wal-Mart generates $17B in profits (as the author contends), then a 40% tax rate would equal $6.8B in taxes PLUS the income tax paid by the 1.2 million workers nationwide.

So, for a measly $2.6B "investment", the government gets back closer to $10B annually.

Again, I don't agree a whit with his premise, but if he's asking why subsidize Wal-Mart, I would think a 400% return on investment is a good reason.

[Dusty Road]

Most of the starting Walmart positions are not meant as a career choice, for many it’s a place to start your working career and move on to better things.

[WayneS]

I wish people would stop telling me what what should make me angry.

[WayneS]

In what way?

[WayneS]

Exactly!

[P.O.E.]

Wonder how many billions in food stamps are spent at Walmart.

IMHO, that’s why Walmart gets attacked by libs - it’s part of their shell game. They put up a big show of how much they hate something, but in reality they’re stoking it.

That’s true with poverty, racism, you-name-it.

[Salgak]

Waiting for the wailing and moaning when most WallyWorld employees are replaced by shelf-stocking robots. . .

[Fightin Whitey]

The problem is that the welfare state is too generous.

Also that people have five or six kids and then bitch about the minimum wage not covering the bills.

My wife and I are childless, largely because we didn't have any money when we were young.

So now we end up paying for someone else's kids.

[central_va]

Paying each employee 5k/yr full time would not drastically raise prices at the shelf, maybe a percent. The left half of the bell curve fills these positions and they are NOT going to be scientists, doctors and lawyers. So the article has merit. Just my opinion.

The Chamber of Commerce will ruin us.

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

Only a dedicated liberal could take all that data and analysis and *still* come up with the same old tired admonitions and ideas that every brain-dead envious moron who attacks Wal-Mart comes up with. It’s the same thing as the apparent mental unity between flocks of Harvard professors and mobs of feral ghetto rats. They think exactly alike. It begs the question: What are the Harvard grads getting for their $50K/year tuition?

[DoodleDawg]

And perhaps motivated to seek a better job or training for a better job?

If they could get a better job I doubt they would be in retail at Walmart or any of the other box stores.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

“...so the US government has to do it.”

No, they do not. If Wal-Mart’s employees could not afford to work there, they would not. So if the government stops providing these things, either Wal-Mart offers higher wages and perks, or it does not have employees. It is called “market forces”, and works quite well unless government decides to horn in for its own purposes.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Give Mr. Snyder credit for striving to keep economic ignorance alive.

[DoodleDawg]

Again, I don't agree a whit with his premise, but if he's asking why subsidize Wal-Mart, I would think a 400% return on investment is a good reason.

That is the most ridiculous argument I've ever heard. By that reasoning then it's better for the government if Walmart cut salaries and benefits to employees even more, thus causing an even larger number to resort to foodstamps and Medicaid, but increasing Walmarts profits and thus increasing the taxes they pay.

[exPBRrat]

Good grief it’s retail job.

[gop4lyf]

My mom has worked for Walmart for about 15 years now. She has no real marketable jobs skills. She is constantly griping about how it is run and how employees are treated. Whenever she starts complaining, I tell her to become a manager and run it the way you want. She says she has no desire to be a manager. She also refuses to look for another job. Her whole life she has expected a job to just fall in her lap. It sickens me.

[Entrepreneur]

The $17 billion is after tax (I presume). The top marginal corporate tax rate is 35%. Divide $17 billion by (1 - 35%) to get pre-tax profits. That's $26 billion. Multiply that by 35% and Wal-Mart is raped by the Federal government for more than $9 billion. Of course, this doesn't take into account state taxes, payroll taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, gas taxes, recycling taxes, taxes for things that move, taxes for things that don't move, etc.

Wal-Mart's profit margin is a paltry 3.12%. That's practically break-even. The idiot author is either ignorant of business (quite possible) or maliciously deceptive (also possible - in fact, both are possible, maybe even likely).

Link to Wal-Mart's Quarterly Profit Data

[moovova]

Good job, Wal-Mart. Keep it up.

Commies hate capitalists...especially successful capitalists.

[Oshkalaboomboom]

Commies hate capitalists...especially successful capitalists.

What about crony Capitalists? Didn't Walmart lobby for Obamacare, not because they cared about it but because they already offered insurance to their full time workers so it would raise the costs of doing business for their competitors without hurting them?

[grania]

the solution for it is real education in substantive areas, hard work, and discipline.

Hard work and discipline are needed, for sure. They would become more prevalent traits if workers weren't as well off collecting government benefits as they are working. The education part, not so much. A high school education should be all that's needed to do the jobs being discussed.

What has to change is the unfair competition from invader labor for those jobs. The other thing that has to change is foreign products undermining the jobs US workers would have if manufacturing came back to the US.

Until those two things happen, wages will be unnaturally low, because there's too much availability of cheap labor.