Report: Walmart Workers Cost Taxpayers $6.2 Billion In Public Assistance

[Scuba]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2014/04/15/report-walmart-workers-cost-taxpayers-6-2-billion-in-public-assistance/

Walmart’s low-wage workers cost U.S. taxpayers an estimated $6.2 billion in public assistance including food stamps, Medicaid and subsidized housing, according to a report published to coincide with Tax Day, April 15.

Americans for Tax Fairness, a coalition of 400 national and state-level progressive groups, made this estimate using data from a 2013 study by Democratic Staff of the U.S. Committee on Education and the Workforce. “The study estimated the cost to Wisconsin’s taxpayers of Walmart’s low wages and benefits, which often force workers to rely on various public assistance programs,” reads the report, available in full here.

“It found that a single Walmart Supercenter cost taxpayers between $904,542 and $1.75 million per year, or between $3,015 and $5,815 on average for each of 300 workers.” Americans for Tax Fairness then took the mid-point of that range ($4,415) and multiplied it by Walmart’s approximately 1.4 million workers to come up with an estimate of the overall taxpayers’ bill for the Bentonville, Ark.-based big box giant’s staffers.

The report provides a state-by-state breakdown of these figures, as well as some context on the other side of the coin: Walmart’s huge share of the nationwide SNAP, or food stamp, market.

And Minnesota is working on a solution to this problem ...,

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025272785

[Uben]

1. Send the Waltons and the shareholders a bill for $6.2 billion

....and calculate all the McDonalds and Subway and others who notoriously pay low wages a bill, too. Either raise your wages and prices or pay for the costs your employees are costing tax payers. Keeping your prices lower by keeping people in poverty is not a business model we need or want.

[Octafish]

2. Welfare for the Wealthy

Socialism for the Superrich.

And it's Austerity Forever to the rest of us who pick up their tab.

[RiffRandell]

3. It used to be half of kids on Peachcare were kids of Walmart employees

her in GA.

[logosoco]

4. This is a rip off, right in front of everyones face....

and yet many people are commenting (not here, other places I see online) that shoplifting makes someone a thug who should be shot.

People are just out of their damn minds! And I am about to lose mine!

[brush]

5. Thanks for this posting . . .

Walmart is a money-extracting cancer on the country but should the headline of the OP read "Walmart Cost Taxpayers $6.2 Billion In Public Assistance" instead of "Walmart Workers Cost Taxpayers $6.2 Billion In Public Assistance"?

It's the corporation not the exploited workers that are costing us taxpayers all this money by not paying living wages.

[snagglepuss]

6. k and r

[jwirr]

7. This is the way that corporate America make a profit off their workers. Most corporations that pay

minimum wages and even more are relying on the taxpayer to provide the services they need (and would pay for with their own wages if they were high enough) rather than pay a living wage.

A young family I know makes minimum wage and the husband makes more than $11 an hour and they are still eligible for food stamps. No matter how one feels about this corporation they are still receiving a government subsidy in the form of food stamps to their employees.

I am actually not complaining about this but I want them to acknowledge that they are the real recipient of this aid. If they were paying living wages there would be no need for the food stamps. The $6.2 billion would be in their employees pocket and not theirs.