Walmart is the biggest retailer in the world. It boasts of having 1.2 million Americans on their payroll. Its reported annual profits are around $13 billion. So it’s safe to say since it is so big – and so ubiquitous – and so obviously successful – the government can now stop subsidizing it.
Let me explain: I was covering the first stop for the Progressive
Caucus’ “Speak Out for Good Jobs Now” listening tour held in Minneapolis attended by Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) among others. The first audience member to speak was one Girsheila Green, a young mother from Compton, California, who has worked at Walmart for three years. Ms. Green told the crowded church how in her tenure with Walmart, she’s received two raises and is now a manager. She makes nine dollars an hour (one dollar above the laughably-low California minimum wage).
She pulled from her pocket three cards she claimed most Walmart employees at her store have: a 10 percent Walmart employee discount card, her employee ID and her EBT card (what used to be called food stamps).
She relayed that 80 percent of her store is on food stamps. I’d argue one is too many.
It’s true, Girsheila doesn’t have to work at Walmart if she feels she’s not being paid enough. She can go work somewhere else. She’s not being
forced to work for a wage that won’t feed her family. The same argument can be made for child labor, dangerous working conditions and other labor issues settled in the 20th century by workers standing up for their rights.
Girsheila’s individual choice is not the issue at all. Since Walmart, the largest private employer in the country, generally doesn’t pay its “associates” or “Walmart family members” enough to live on – the giant multi-national corporation is relying on the U.S. government to
feed its employees. We, as taxpayers, pay for Walmart’s cost-cutting tactics. Profit? Privatized. Nutrition? Socialized.
Think of how many employees use their food stamp cards to buy groceries at the store where they WORK. It’s like a nurse having to file bankruptcy due to medical bills.
And folks wonder where the family farms go!
