Wal-Mart 'Welfare Kings'

A slide from Wal-Mart’s U.S. CEO’s presentation to Goldman Sachs’ retail conference boasts that “Over 475K” U.S. employees earned more than $25,000 last year. Activist workers and members of Congress seized on that statistic at a Wednesday press event, arguing it amounts to an admission that annual pay for the majority of Walmart’s 1.3 million-member US workforce falls below $25,000.

“Low-income people, poor people, have been demonized for being the ‘takers,’” Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky told reporters at a D.C. press conference. But because “taxpayers are the ones that are subsidizing Wal-Mart right now,” she contended, Wal-Mart elites are the true “welfare kings in this country.”

Schakowsky’s critique was echoed by two other House Democrats. Congressman George Miller, the top Democrat on the House Education & the Workforce Committee, argued that when Congress passed welfare reform, the goal was to help poor people “end their dependency on public assistance – but that’s not the business plan that Wal-Mart and others have fashioned out.” California Congresswoman Grace Napalitano urged that “we need to start looking” at what portion of public assistances dollars are “subsidizing the Wal-Mart employees, and actually in turn subsidizing Wal-Mart itself.”

The congressional Democrats were joined by members of OUR Walmart, the non-union workers group closely tied to the United Food & Commercial Workers union, who described their experiences making less than $25,000 a year. After “student loan payments, transportation, rent to my grandmother, I have barely nothing,” said Illinois employee Richard Wilson. “I shouldn’t have to decide between feed my kids or pay my rent,” said Maryland employee Gail Todd. “I’ve got to get another payday loan to be able to pay another payday loan,” said California employee Anthony Goytia. He told reporters he had scars “like a junkie,” because he repeatedly donated blood plasma for money.

OUR Walmart’s spotlight on Wal-Mart’s Goldman Sachs presentation is the latest volley in the battle between the company and its critics over how much Wal-Mart pays – one front in the larger message war over whether the retailer’s economic model is good for the country. Wal-Mart has pegged its average wage at $12.78 per hour (that’s over $25,000 if multiplied by forty hours and fifty weeks), but that figure excludes part-time employees and includes managers. (Wal-Mart did not immediately respond to an inquiry regarding why it does not release a figure that includes part-timers.) Estimates cited by labor groups – drawing on 2011 IBISworld data and GlassDoor.com – put the number at $8.81 or $8.84. OUR Walmart framed Wal-Mart’s declaration that more than 475,000 workers make over $25,000 each year as an implicit acknowledgement that over 800,000 make less – even as Wal-Mart reaps $17 billion in annual profit. (The September presentation was been posted on Wal-Mart’s website, but the 475,000 figure had not been previously reported.)



http://www.salon.com/2013/10/23/democrats_blast_wal_mart_welfare_kings/http://www.salon.com/2013/10/23/democrats_blast_wal_mart_welfare_kings/