More money? Hell, yes! An astounding 49 million Americans now live below the poverty line.

And another 97 million are classified as "low-income," which is defined as household income of 1-2 times the poverty level.

That means nearly half of the country is poor or strapped.

Of course, any time you point these statistics out publicly, you get strafed by those who think you want Big Government to strip wealth away from Americans who have it and hand it to the Americans who don't.

But we actually don't need Big Government to do a thing. Because the private sector can begin to solve the problem itself. Voluntarily.

How?

By giving a lot of America's low-income workers a raise.

Specifically, America's biggest low-wage employers — Walmart, McDonald's, Kmart, Target, et al — could voluntarily give every one of their low-income workers a big raise.

Corporate profit margins are at an all-time high, and wages as a percent of GDP are at an all-time low, so the corporations can certainly afford this.

Corporate profits as a percent of GDP -- near all-time highs. St. Louis Fed Walmart, for example, which employs about 1% of the working adults in America, made $25 billion of operating profit last year.

If Walmart gave each of its 1.4 million U.S. "associates" a $5,000 raise, this would only cost it $7 billion, That would leave it with an operating profit of a healthy $18 billion. And because the $7 billion of additional compensation expense would reduce Walmart's tax bill, the impact on its bottom line would be even less.

And why might Walmart want to give its 1.4 million American employees a raise?

Wages as a percent of GDP...near all-time lows. St. Louis Fed Well, because Walmart says that one of its corporate missions is to help people "live better."

And a $5,000 raise per employee, which Walmart can easily afford, would help people who are giving their lives to Walmart live better.

How much better?

A lot better.

The average Walmart "associate," Wake Up Walmart reports, makes $11.75 an hour. That's $20,744 per year. Those wages are slightly below the national average for retail employees, which is $12.04 an hour. They also produce annual earnings that, in a one-earner household, are below the $22,000 poverty line.

A $5,000 raise would be a 20% raise for the average Walmart associate. It would take the associate's household income above the poverty line. If the household is a two-Walmart-associate household, which many probably are, the raise would amount to $10,000 per year. This would take the household above the "low-income" line.

Given that poor and low-income people spend just about everything they make, the raise would also act as a stimulus for the economy. In fact, it might even act as a stimulus for Walmart. Many Walmart associates would probably thank the company for the raise by turning around and spending the raise at Walmart. And that might help boost Walmart's anemic sales growth.

And it would unquestionably begin to help the country.

One of the fundamental problems in the American economy, after all, is that well-paid manufacturing jobs have been replaced by low-paid service-sector jobs. This has reduced the purchasing power of the middle and lower-middle classes, which, in turn is hurting the performance of most companies that sell to the American consumer.

The solution to this problem, most people say, is to rebuild the U.S. manufacturing base. But why? There's nothing special about manufacturing, other than it used to have higher pay scales than today's low-wage retailing, food-service, and construction jobs.

And, again, it's not like Walmart is a manufacturer whose business is being clobbered by low-wage manufacturing overseas.

Walmart is still on a roll.

Walmart's global sales crossed $400 billion last year. Its profits exceeded $15 billion. Its market value — $200 billion — has weathered the Great Recession and market crash and remains near all-time highs.

Walmart employs an astounding 2.1 million people overall, including 1.4 million people in the U.S. This is a staggering 1% of the U.S.'s 140 million working population.

Walmart, in other words, matters. Its payrolls, and its pay, move the needle.

And right now, Walmart is very much part of the problem.

Walmart's model Walmart employee. This one's probably not making $11.75 an hour. In an economy that is desperate to find some way to employ the ~25 million Americans who are either unemployed or under-employed, Walmart does employ 1.4 million jobs.

And that's unequivocally a good thing.

But Walmart is constantly under attack for reaming its associates, for paying them too little, for putting higher-paid workers at other companies out of work, for making a major contribution to the national problems described above.

And with $15 billion of annual profits, Walmart could certainly afford not to do that.

So maybe it should pay its associates more.

Not because it has to. There's no need to bring the government into this, and Walmart's wages are already well above minimum wage.

Maybe Walmart should pay its associates more because it chooses to.

Henry Ford was famous for choosing to pay his assembly-line workers enough that they could become his customers. This, Ford reasoned, would help him sell more cars. And it was also undoubtedly good for his employees and the country.

So maybe Walmart should do the same thing: Use some of its vast profits to help its employees live above the poverty line.

Walmart CEO Mike Duke.

Now, Walmart is a private corporation, run for the benefit of not only employees but customers and owners, and Walmart's owners might justifiably squawk if the company suddenly decided to give its 1.4 million employees a raise.

But Walmart could argue, persuasively, that what's good for Walmart associates is good for Walmart. And what's good for Walmart is good for the country.

In addition to helping its 1.4 million employees, a move like this would help America begin to solve its inequality problem.

And it wouldn't involve the government!

See Also: FINALLY: A Rich Person Destroys The Myth That Rich People Create Jobs