Food Stamps Don't Keep Walmart's Prices Low, They Keep Its Profits High

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/labor/food-stamps-dont-keep-walmarts-prices-low-they-keep-its-profits-high





"The same company that brings in the most food stamp dollars in revenue -- an estimated $13 billion last year -- also likely has the most employees using food stamps."

The name of the mammoth food stamp-reliant company is no secret: Walmart.

As journalist Krissy Clark notes in Marketplace's valuable new series " The Secret Life of the Food Stamp," Walmart benefits from food stamps in multiple ways, as taxpayers both underwrite the company's food sales and also subsidize its payroll costs.

There is no doubt that food stamps (and a host of other public subsidies from Medicaid to home heating assistance to the Earned Income Tax Credit and beyond) reduce Walmart's employment costs substantially. A study released last year by staff of the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce found that a single 300-employee Walmart Supercenter may cost taxpayers anywhere from $904,542 to nearly $1.75 million per year.

[AleksS]

1. That's also the truth on the minimum wage!

That's also the truth on the minimum wage!

These RW jobs, insist that if the min wage is raised, then people will be fired, or prices will go up. NEVER once do they even consider taking a cut out of the profit line.