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With an average starting salary of $7-8 an hour for workers, as well as a full time position being approximately 28 hours a week, workers who pay for health benefits do not have much money left over to support themselves let alone their families. It is far below what is considered a living wage. According to Mr. Bowman, Wal-Mart actually encourages its employees to apply for state and federal assistance, so that they can get health benefits that the company is not providing for them. This leads to every state and federal taxpayer actually subsidizing the profits of Wal-Mart. These profits reached over 7 Billion dollars in the last fiscal year. Despite this fact, the wages and benefits are not consistent with a job that working people could support their families on.

excerpted from http://newjersey.indymedia.org