The future crimes of WalMart
by David Atkins
It’s a point that’s been made before, but a new report is shining a light on just how much WalMart is ripping off the country by forcing its employees onto the public dole while it rakes in massive profits:
Walmart’s wages and benefits are so low that many of its employees are forced to turn to the government for aid, costing taxpayers between $900,000 and $1.75 million per store, according to a report released last week by congressional Democrats…
The report cites a confluence of trends that have forced more workers to rely on safety-net programs: the depressed bargaining power of labor in a still struggling economy; a 97 year low in union enrollment; and the fact that the middle-wage jobs lost during the recession have been replaced by low-wage jobs. The problem of minimum-wage work isn’t confined to Walmart. But as the country’s largest low-wage employer, with about 1.4 million employees in the US—roughly 10 percent of the American retail workforce—Walmart’s policies are a driving force in keeping wages low. The company also happens to elegantly epitomize the divide between the top and bottom in America: the collective wealth of the six Waltons equals the combined wealth of 48.8 million families on the other end of the economic spectrum. The average Walmart worker making $8.81 per hour would have to work for 7 million years to acquire the Walton family’s current wealth.
It’s not a crime for WalMart to do this. Not yet. But then, making children work in factories for 16 hours a day used to legal, too. When activists tried to put a stop to it, they were called communists and enemies of the free market.
Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose. But rest assured, one day most of what WalMart and similar companies do will be illegal. One day companies will be forced to cover the external costs they have grown used to shoving onto the taxpayer, and one day there will be legislated direct scaling between profits, productivity and wages. The longer we wait to make so, the more subject we will be to the scorn of future generations.
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