Anyone else think that every state in the union should be taxing the living frak out of Wal-Mart?
The Girl brought home a documentary on the chain store giant and guess what ... even if you don't shop there ... you spend money on Wal-Mart every day of your life. Fun, huh? Yes ... they save costs by not spending any more money on their employees than humanly possible. So every state government spends millions on welfare for Wal-Mart's employees because they don't want to pay a living wage. So before anyone complains about social welfare spending ... they should think about the corporate welfare.
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
On a side note...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
3 comments:
IIRC, a standard big-box Wal-Mart costs the government about $200k to $400k annually in medical spending.
Of course, Wal-Mart is not the only company doing this, but it's one of the more egregious examples.
Another one that sums up the current situation is the meatpacking industry. Lots of low-paying, unpleasant factory jobs working with sharp knives, hooks, conveyors, etc. Several companies don't give any medical benefits at all (pretty bad given that you have a solid risk of losing fingers) until you've been working there a year. That's why they lay off workers just before the year mark. (source: Fast Food Nation). Charming, I thought.
Actually, those numbers are low.
"The report estimates that in 2004, Wal-Mart workers received more than $22.7 million in taxpayer-funded health benefits. More than $12.1 million of that total came from Washington state's coffers"
http://blog.wakeupwalmart.com/ufcw/high_costs/index.html
That's just one state.
And, at least according to this documentary, the billionare owners of Wal-Mart have enough money to pay health care for each of their employees ... and remain billionaires.
That documentary is:
http://www.netflix.com/MovieDisplay?movieid=70040809
oh wait ... you were talking per store ... ? My bad.
Post a Comment