Wal-Mart's free ride (taxpayer subsidies)

[Keirsey]

How does Wal-Mart keep prices so low?


Taxpayer subsidies, that's how.

Wal-Mart, the Arkansas-based retail chain that is now the nation's largest employer, has a dramatic advantage when it builds a store in a Wisconsin community and then starts charging dramatically lower prices than hometown businesses.

Wal-Mart is able to charge those low prices in part because the company does not pay a living wage to most of its workers. But the company really cleans up in the area of benefits; instead of paying for health insurance for its employees, as homegrown Wisconsin retailers do, Wal-Mart steers those employees into the BadgerCare and Medicaid programs.

...

According to figures obtained from the Wisconsin Department of Health and Family Services, the annual cost to taxpayers for health care coverage for Wal-Mart employees and their families is $4.75 million. Of that, the state covers $1.8 million, while the remainder comes from the federal treasury. (The feds split the costs of BadgerCare and Medicaid with the state.)

http://www.madison.com/tct/opinion/index.php?ntid=16514&ntpid=2

[gmoney]

1. how can ANYONE shop there?

grumble grumble

[bobweaver]

5. The answer is

don't shop at Wal-Mart for any reason. But Americans are too stupid and selfish to see this or even think about it. The fact that the package of socks is 13 cents cheaper at Wal-Mart than it is at any other store is all that matters to them.

[theearthisround]

2. On top of all that they use slave labor

Oh the wonders of globalisation...

[newyawker99]

4. Hi theearthisround!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[winston61]

3. No different in Texas

Here in the town where I live, the city fathers handed Walmart $7,000,000.00 in taxpayer funded goodies to bribe Walmart into building a distribution center here. The dist. centers pay a little better than the stores, but I don't know about benefits. But remember this is Texas, the most worker hostile state in the union. I drive 15 miles to Target rather than shop at despicable walmart. The more you learn about them, the more you can despise them.