There is this, from Mother Jones:
Just how rich are the Waltons? According to the latest edition of the Forbes 400, released yesterday, the six wealthiest heirs to the Walmart empire are together worth a staggering $115 billion. This marks the first time in American history that one family has controlled a 12-figure fortune. While the nation’s richest person is still Bill Gates, the sixth-, seventh-, eighth-, and ninth-richest Americans are all Waltons.
To put that in perspective, here’s a chart of things the Waltons could afford to pay for:
Then there is this:
And then there is this, from the blog Walmart 1%:
Fact: Walmart is a Job Killer
- Walmart store openings destroy almost three local jobs for every two they create by reducing retail employment by an average of 2.7 percent in every county they enter.[1]
- Walmart cost America an estimated 196,000 jobs – mainly manufacturing jobs – between 2001 and 2006 as a result of the company’s imports from China.[2]
Fact: Walmart Jobs Are Poverty Jobs
- Walmart workers average just $8.81 hour.[3] This translates to annual pay of $15,576, based upon Walmart’s full-time status of 34 hours per week.[4] This is less than 70% of the poverty line for a family of four.[5]
- Walmart pays less than other retail firms. A 2005 study found that Walmart workers earn an estimated 12.4% less than retail workers as a whole, and 14.5% less than workers in large retail in general.[6] A 2007 study which compared Wal-mart to other general merchandising employers found a wage gap of 17.4%.[7]
- Last year, Walmart slashed already meager health benefits, leaving more workers uninsured.[8]
Fact: Taxpayers Are Paying the Price for Walmart
- Despite all the damage they have done to US workers and communities, a 2007 study found that, as of that date, Walmart had received more than $1.2 billion in tax breaks, free land, infrastructure assistance, low-cost financing and outright grants from state and local governments around the country.[9] This number has surely increased as Walmart continues to receive additional subsidies.
- Taxpayers Subsidize Walmart’s Low Wages and Poor Benefits – In many states across the country, Walmart is the employer with the largest number of employees and dependents using taxpayer-funded health insurance programs.[10]
- A few examples:
- In Arizona, according to data released by the state in 2005, the company had more 2,700 employees on the state-funded plan.[11]
- The company also topped the list in their home state of Arkansas, with nearly 4,000 employees forced onto the state’s plan according to data released by the state in 2005.[12]
- In Massachusetts, in 2009, taxpayers paid $8.8 million for Walmart associates to use publicly subsidized healthcare services.[13]
- Although national numbers are not available, if the cost to Massachusetts taxpayers is adjusted nationwide, the cost would be roughly $1 billion.[14]
And finally, there is this, from Addicting Info:
- Walmart’s intentionally low wages force employees to need approximately $420,000 per year, per store, totaling $2.66 BILLION annually in food stamps and other taxpayer assistance…to survive.
- Walmart’s intentionally low wages cost the country HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of dollars in payroll tax deductions for Federal, State, and Local taxes.
- Walmart’s intentionally low wages cost our communities the ability to hire and retain important public service workers like firefighters, police officers, maintenance workers, and teachers.
- Walmart’s intentionally low wages cost our communities with their increased need for those same public services they are underfunding.
- Walmart’s intentionally low wages and lack of covered benefits cost taxpayers over $1.02 BILLION a year in healthcare costs.
- Walmart’s intentionally low wages cost taxpayers as much as $225 MILLION in free and reduced price lunches for school-age children.
- Walmart’s intentionally low wages cost taxpayers over $780 MILLION in tax deductions for low-income families.
So the Sam Walton heirs are almost unimaginably wealthy, a wealth produced by the labor of their underpaid workers, many of whom depend on the State for health care and even food. How would a just society respond to this situation? Here is the Catechism:
2405Goods of production – material or immaterial – such as land, factories, practical or artistic skills, oblige their possessors to employ them in ways that will benefit the greatest number. Those who hold goods for use and consumption should use them with moderation, reserving the better part for guests, for the sick and the poor.
2406 Political authority has the right and duty to regulate the legitimate exercise of the right to ownership for the sake of the common good.189
And here is Paul VI:
If certain landed estates impede the general prosperity because they are extensive, unused or poorly used, or because they bring hardship to peoples or are detrimental to the interests of the country, the common good sometimes demands their expropriation.
If that applies to “landed estates” it should surely apply to corporations. In a just society this ill-gotten gain would be expropriated and those who came by it in such an immoral way would be imprisoned. Tempering justice with mercy, we could forgo the prison sentence and the Waltons could be left with enough to live lives of frugal comfort.
Their vast wealth should be redistributed to their workers, and Walmart should be remade into a worker cooperative. But as a democratic behemoth would still be a behemoth, each department -hardware, clothing, etc.- should be restructured as a small cooperative.
But as we live in a corporatocracy rather than a just society, we at least should support Walmart employees in their efforts to organize a labor union and to wrest a living wage from these criminals.
I believe the real issue is not with Walmart, but rather with NAFTA. Once Bill Clinton signed that into law back in the early 90′s, it has been downhill from there. Walmart merely responded to the open season by doing what any business would do: use that opportunity to offer lower cost items to the American people. How do we fix the problem? By restoring Import taxes to a level that actually forces businesses to relocate their manufacturing back to the USA. Yes products would cost more, but at least American companies could compete with China, and Asia that way.
Greg,
I agree with you when you say that the problem is both older and deeper than Walmart or the Walmart owners. But then you write, “Walmart merely responded to the open season by doing what any business would do: use that opportunity to offer lower cost items to the American people.”
I’m not sure if you’re implying that it’s perfectly ok to offer low wages and cheap imported goods, all because it’s now legal and the logic of capitalism pushes one in that direction. If you are, then I entirely disagree with you. It’s true that some small businesses might be forced either to conform to market practice or go under, but a company with as large a market share as Walmart does not need to. Moreover, as the article pointed out, Walmart pays less than other similar stores and thus is driving the wage market even lower. The owners and managers of Walmart are not guiltless, and, to be frank, they should fear the just judgment of God after their deaths.
Thomas,
I guess I don’t see these types of stores as being the end all for employment in our country. There should be a healthy balance between manufacturing, and goods & services, with the retail being less weighted in that mix. For the most part we’ve gotten out of kilter, and when jobs are scarce, then everyone starts proclaiming that the Walmarts of our country are the bad guys causing all the problems. But in reality, the store was never meant to be a place where society’s bread winners would find permanent, lifetime employment; rather it was a store designed to offer lower quality, less pricey goods, by purchasing them at reduced costs; lower salaries were also part of that model’s design. In other words, the store’s model was designed to be a stepping stone for college grads to get their feet wet, as well as a place where retirees could earn extra spending money, etc., etc. And as I said earlier, we really need to find out where all the real jobs have gone, and how it is that we can get those back.
I would think the Waltons never dreamed their upstart would become the large entity that it is today. So, yes, I agree they should spread the wealth a little more, but that will require changing their business model. And that might be necessary if our silly president doesn’t realize where the real problem is in this country, and then fix it. (And) … that would begin with abolishing NAFTA.
According to Catholic teaching every adult is owned a living wage in commutative justice unless the employer honestly cannot pay more. Walmart simply has no right to a business model of cheap labor and high profits. That’s like saying, `Well, I use slave labor, but that’s only because of my business model. Maybe I’ll change that some day.’
Unless Walmart had a policy of hiring only teenagers living at home – which I guess would not even be legal – they have a duty to pay a living wage if they can.
Sorry, that should be “owed” not “owned.”
Another point, Greg, is that even if Walmart had hired only teenage still living with their parents, if the owners made huge profits they were required to share those profits equitably with their workers. The following from Pius XI, Quadragesimo Anno, is pertinent:
“54. Property, that is, `capital,’ has undoubtedly long been able to appropriate too much to itself. Whatever was produced, whatever returns accrued, capital claimed for itself, hardly leaving to the worker enough to restore and renew his strength. For the doctrine was preached that all accumulation of capital falls by an absolutely insuperable economic law to the rich, and that by the same law the workers are given over and bound to perpetual want, to the scantiest of livelihoods. It is true, indeed, that things have not always and everywhere corresponded with this sort of teaching of the so-called Manchesterian Liberals; yet it cannot be denied that economic social institutions have moved steadily in that direction. That these false ideas, these erroneous suppositions, have been vigorously assailed, and not by those alone who through them were being deprived of their innate right to obtain better conditions, will surprise no one.”
I understand what you are saying, and I agree Walmart should change their business model now that they’ve achieved great success. But it is only becoming more of a necessity because the last 3 presidents of our country have sold us out by enacting, and continuing NAFTA, and have refused to do anything about it. Additionally, this latest one is doing all he can do to exponentially drive up the cost of everyone’s health benefits, so that more and more companies will have no other choice than to stop offering those benefits.
As for hiring teenagers, well, I worked for numerous farmers growing up, and all they ever offered me was a paycheck (and I was happy to receive it).
The problem is that our country has given manufacturing companies a license to leave, yet still do high-margin business here. That is the root of our problem. We can’t do anything about the labor situation in China, but we can certainly fix our problems here, and that process would begin with our silly president (but don’t hold your breath).
And I know Catholic teaching on the dignity and rights of workers. Vatican II wrote much on it, and so did John Paul II, but unless the owners of these businesses are Catholic, you can’t expect them to change their business models based upon Catholic Social Teaching. You, however, can choose not to shop there.
Interesting choice for Budget Chief by our Hypocrite in Chief.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/obama-nominates-wal-marts-burwell-115122579.html
Agreed, except I thing Walmart should be made into a series of worker cooperatives, not just one. It’s not a good thing to let a behemoth like that continue to be centralized.
Forgive me if I wasn’t clear; each individual Walmart should be made into many coops.