Wal-Mart Relies On Taxpayers To Subsidize Low Wages

Business Insider ^ | June 1, 2013 | Emily Coyle

[steelhead_trout]

According to The Huffington Post, Congressional Democrats released a study Thursday that demonstrated how Wal-Mart’s wages are so low that many of its workers must rely on food stamps and other government aid programs, costing taxpayers as much as $900,0000 at just one Wal-Mart Supercenter in Wisconsin.

The report, “The Low-Wage Drag on Our Economy,” was produced by Democrats with the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.

[KarlInOhio]

Is any other low end retail or fast food different? The "mom & pop" stores that Wal-Mart supposedly kills (although the bigger victims were national stores like KMart or local discounters like Gold Circle and Rink's where I lived) weren't exactly giving $20/hour jobs to cashiers.

Wal-Mart didn't become the bad guy nationally until they crossed the line from the largely non-unionized discount merchandise stores to the unionized grocery business. That was when they became the focus of evil in America. Trace the complaints and you'll find the unions and unionized competitors behind them.

[Kansas58]

we are better off with Walmart than without!

[JoeDetweiler]

OK...I am imagining a world in which Walmart tells someone that they won’t be hired because they have too many children to support at a given wage level, and their IQ pretty much guarantees that they won’t be promoted to a higher position.

Liberal heads would explode!

[nhwingut]

Wally World keeps it's wages dirt cheap--while the Waltons are sitting on untold billions and billions of dollars

Is that you, Elizabeth Warren?

[bgill]

This might be radical thinking but if they don’t like Walmart’s wages then take their limited skills someplace that will pay them more. Good luck with that.

[bray]

Makes me want to shop at Wal-Mart. What is the difference between them and every other company needing low wage workers? Does everybody at WM make minimum wage? More Marxism is the answer.

Pray America is Waking

[lepton]

“If there were no gov’t subsidies, then people obviously couldn’t get by on a Walmart salary. “

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That hardly follows. SOME people couldn’t get by. Many could. The government pays subsidies to many who don’t need them in any sensible sense.

[Kansas58]

hey newbie, Dec 8 2012? Learn economics and get back to us! What is your name on DU?

[BillM]

Every Walmart store lowers the cost of living for all of its customers. I’m guessing a ratio of 200 to 500 customers per Walmart employee.

[Tupelo]

I have to call BULLCRAP on this one. My brother in law works for Walmart and makes a damn fine living. An old friend from high school retired from Walmart afew years back as a millionaire.

Walmart pays minimum wages as starting salary but they advance good employees. Usually promoting from within.

[Cymbaline]

Are you sure you’re on the right website?

[vanilla swirl]

Perhaps if gubmint did NOT provide any benefits then the workers would move on to wages that were capable of supporting their families, Walmart wouldn’t have any workers so if they wanted to stay in business would offer higher wages.

That troublesome freemarket thingy.

[John 3_19-21]

IBTZ

[redgolum]

This article is correct. Walmart pays so low that the state subsidizes most of the wages and benefits to its employees.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

If there weren't food stamps and welfare, people would have to earn a lot less to make ends meet.

Anything government does is inefficient and corrupt.

[steelhead_trout]

“Welfare Can Make More Sense than Work”

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Well, assuming Cato’s calculations are correct (alliteration alert!), considering that real wages *adjusted for for inflation* haven’t gone up all that much for most people for 1973, that’s not a big surprise. One thing Cato leaves out, and it’s a BIG thing, is that the old AFDC system of sucking the welfare teat for life has been long gone, since 1996 in fact. Now it’s TANF, and you get a 5 year lifetime limit. So it’s a much shorter ride on the gravy train now than it was back in the day.

[Kansas58]

Sorry that was meant for the fish!

[CMAC51]

What’s the big deal, according to this logic, Wal-Mart saves the taxpayers tens of millions by providing income to their employees, sale tax collected at their stores and taxes paid on company revenues.

A study a few years back showed that Wal-Mart had done more toward alleviating world poverty than all of the government programs from all of the governments worldwide. Wal-Mart provides jobs to million in the US in their stores and millions more around the globe making the products Wal-Mart sells.

[steelhead_trout]

“IBTZ”

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Huh? I thought we spoke English here, not Klingon.

[Sooth2222]

Wally World keeps it's wages dirt cheap--while the Waltons are sitting on untold billions and billions of dollars--and instructs its workers how to go on the dole! McDonalds does the same thing.

Don't the White House and Democrat caucus do the same thing? (With their unpaid interns.)