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

[NobleSavage]

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.”

http://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoc...t-taxpayers-6-2-billion-in-public-assistance/

 

[Tom Sawyer]

While that's sad, if Walmart had paid out that amount in salaries, it would have only made about $10 billion in profit last year and that's unsustainable and they'd have gone out of business and been forced to lay all of these employees off.

 

[EricK]

Are they saying that if a Walmart opens in an area then the taxpayer bill actually goes up by that amount, or just that after it is open that is the amount of taxpayer money going to those people - which might, after all, be less than the amount which went to them before it opened?

 

[dismal]

So, I assume we're all agreed it's stupid for the federal government to pay this money to walmart workers.

Let's vote the bastards who keep voting to give them food stamps, Medicaid and subsidized housing the fuck out.