Subsidizing Wal-Mart

   Wal-Mart is the largest private-sector employer in America, yet many of its workers are on public assistance, such as food stamps and Medicaid -- health care for the poor. This means that government is subsidizing corporate profits. It also means that the bargain you think you're getting isn't a bargain at all, since you're paying in other ways -- tax dollars for public assistance programs.
   The company has some 1.4 million workers, including part-timers. One survey put the average pay for sales associates at $8.85 an hour, which means many make less than that, or get the legal federal  minimum of $7.25 an hour. And if they work only part-time, that means they are not likely to get any benefits.
     So someone who works 20 hours a week gets $155, with a take-home net of less than that. Nationwide, according to the Department of Labor, 22 states set a minimum wage the same as the federal mandate, 19 states have minimum wage rates higher than the federal law, five states (all in the South) have no minimum wage law, and another four set a minimum wage rate lower than the federal. And if a person works fewer than 40 hours in a week, they can be treated as part-time employees and thus not be eligible for company benefit programs.
   To be fair, in many areas, labor market conditions drive the minimum wage higher than the legal minimum, but often that's still not enough to live on.
   So a person can put in 39 hours in a week, earn about $280 at the minimum wage level, take home less than that, and try to support a family.
   Can it be done?  Perhaps. But that's a yearly total of $14,560, assuming the employee works all 52 weeks, and does not take a vacation. Federal guidelines, set by the Department of Health and Human Services, put the income level for a household of two persons at $15,510, and for a family of four at $23,550.
   Do the math. Even if that employee is paid $10 an hour, the yearly total is $20,280 for a full 52 weeks, no vacation, and that's still below the government poverty level. Can a worker support a spouse and two children on that income? Not without food stamps or rent assistance, much less Medicaid for health care.

  Therefore, the government is subsidizing Wal-Mart profits.
  
  In its defense, the company has claimed that the average hourly wage for all its employees is $12.78, and only 5 percent of its workers were on Medicaid.
   Again, do the math. At $12.78 an hour, assuming two weeks (unpaid) vacation, that's a yearly total of $25,560, just a tad more than the federal poverty level of $23,550 for a family of four.
   And if "only" 5 percent of its 1.4 million employees are on Medicaid, that's 70,000 people getting government-sponsored health care because they don't earn enough to get their own, or their employer doesn't provide a health care insurance plan.
   That's 70,000 people too many, especially while the Walton family, owners of the Wal-Mart chain, enjoys a net worth of an estimated $100 billion. There are just six heirs to the Walton fortune, according to published reports, and their net worth is more than nearly half of all other American households combined -- the lower half, of course.