

Once again, a Walmart store has set out a collection box for food donations to support its own employees, who are paid so little that they depend upon social assistance (and public generosity) to survive.

When you shop at your local Walmart, you support the profitability of a business that couldn't survive without your tax-dollars subsidizing its stores. It's a business model that made the Walton family into the richest family in America — the six Waltons' net worth is more than the bottom 42% of Americans', combined — and you give them a handout every time you shop at Walmart.

Technically,the food drives are not Walmart corporate policy, so hey, all is forgiven, amiright? Though hey, a Walmart spokesperson did characterize the Ohio effort as "part of the company's culture to rally around associates and take care of them when they face extreme hardships." And Walmart checked, 'cause it cares you know, and the Oklahoma food drive is just for two associates who don't have health insurance because Walmart doesn't provide any to its hourly workers, so it is not like the whole freaking store is starving or anything. You can have it both ways apparently at Walmart. And who wants to subsidize freeloaders with our hard-earned tax dollars anyway? Oh, wait. Actually Walmart hauls in a monster truck load of public assistance for itself. Those low, low daily wages are subsidized by your taxes. The company's low wages leave huge numbers of its employees on public assistance programs such as food stamps and Medicaid. By one estimate, a single Walmart superstore requires up to $1.7 million in public assistance spending every year. The company eats up a total public assistance cost of $6.2 billion per year. That's how Walmart can "afford" to pay its associates so little and yet they don't pass out from hunger in the aisles during your Black Friday orgy of consumerism. Neat!

Walmart Again Holds Food Drive for Own Underpaid Workers [Peter Van Buren/Dissenter]

(via Reddit)