Report:Wal-Mart Has Highest Number of Employees on Welfare in Homestate

'Report: Wal-Mart Has Highest Number of Employees on Welfare in Homestate; Retail Giant's Ongoing Media Blitz Fails to Hide Company Record'

WASHINGTON, March 17 /U.S. Newswire/ -- In Arkansas, the birthplace and headquarters of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., the state's Department of Human Services released damning figures yesterday stating that the retail giant leads the list of top 10 employers whose workers are receiving state welfare. Arkansas is the ninth state to release such figures recently, showing Wal-Mart consistently ranking at or near the top in total employees on state aid.

According to a statement by the United Food and Commercial Workers at http://www.ufcw.org, "Wal-Mart is in the midst of a multi-million dollar media effort in an attempt to hide serious employment practice problems. When the company continues to price health care coverage out of reach of approximately 700,000 employees nationwide, it's bound to force workers onto state aid programs and force taxpayers to foot the bill for Wal-Mart's irresponsible corporate behavior."

The Arkansas study shows that nearly 4,000 of the companies 45,106 employees are on public assistance, with a vast majority of them receiving Medicaid for their children. Food stamps and transitional employment make up the rest of the public assistance, costing the state $39.6 million per year.

"Wal-Mart-one of the richest companies in the world-has cheated workers out of pay, shifts health care costs to taxpayers, faces the largest sex discrimination suit in history, and puts illegal operations into motion whenever workers seek a voice on the job," noted the UFCW statement. "It's a company where fairness for employees and taxpayers in communities where Wal-Mart operates is hard to find. Every one, in one way or another, has to pick up the tab for Wal-Mart's irresponsible conduct.

more....
http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=44559

All states should release information like that. The results are no surprise.

...for their members. They must all be commies. Now you all go shopping at ChinaMart and forget about that other story.

Don

"If it weren't for Walmart welfare would have to pay more in benefits to them" Of course they never talk about how our taxpayer dollars go to help Walmart subsudize their land purchases.

I have been trying to explain to so many conservative lunkheads around here what I mean when I say we are being taxed to meet Wal-Mart's payroll. It has been like trying to explain something to a brick wall. I don't know if they have the Oklahoma figures, but I know from witnessing it with my own two eyes that Wal-Mart is deep into our pockets here.Their supercenters are always convienently located near gov.t assisted housing and I know for a fact from family members that they are filling out and sending in food stamp applications for new hires right in the HR offices. When the hell will people wake up?

they always had a different sign on the front of "sprawl-mart" and one of

those said "don't watch 60 minutes this sunday" referring to the report

60 minutes was going to do on wal-mart.

...you shoudn't be in poverty?

My daughter and I were discussing that today. We were both lamenting the minimum wage not being raised. She said that it would be hard to be self supporting even on twice the current minimum.

I told her she could thank the Republican Party for that act of miserly cruelty. She has teased her older brother and me for getting so fired up about politics, Bush, Republicans, neo-cons, all the things we talk about on DU.

She is getting her eyes opened more and more now, and sees why voting is so important. I have her promise to vote in the next elections, and to vote Democratic.

Welfare or WalMart check.

This becomes all the more scandalous -- on top of the employee slavery -- when you add up the costs to the communities of the corporate blow jobs that Wal-Mart extracts from them via the heartless pimps who sit on state legislatures and local boards and councils.

Wal-Mart: the American sweatshop.

http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/111105559247660.xml

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Wal-Mart has become Ohio's largest employer on Taft's watch. Figures from the Development Department show that Wal-Mart was the state's sixth-largest employer in 1999, when Taft took office - and now tops the list with more than twice as many workers as General Electric, Honda, Ford or Procter & Gamble.

Blasdel, an East Liverpool Republican, said the result for his community has been "a significant negative economic impact." He said Wal-Mart has driven out smaller local businesses in Columbiana County without replacing their civic and charitable contributions to the community.

"Ross Perot said NAFTA would create a giant sucking sound for the economy. In Ohio, I think it's Wal-Mart," Blasdel said.

Employees in urban and rural Ohio report very different wages. Columbus starting pay is about $8.10 an hour, and cashiers in Appalachia start at $6.

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