I watched this movie last night and while I have been aware for many years that Walmart was bad, and that it destroys small towns and is anti Union, I had no idea just how bad it really was.
Here is a link to the trailer View Trailer
Go to the Walmart - The High Cost of Low Price
There are so many major topics and all of them are so depressing, except one, that I thought I'd cover them one by one in a series of posts.
The only high point of the movie is seeing that many communities have been able to stop them from building in their town.
Below are some statistics from the movie. Walmart has systemically decided to force people to work some hours for free rather than pay overtime (verified by many court cases) and pay them substandard wages, then inform them of public assistance programs. This way they are on WIC, Medicaid etc and Walmart basically gets taxpayer subsidized workers.
WAL-MART Costs Taxpayers $1,557,000,000,00 to Support its Employees
Walmart has a fund for their workers that they (the workers) can contribute to to help each other. The workers contributed over $5 million to it while the Walton family contributed $6,000. Each Walton family member is worth over $18 Billion.
Bill Gates has donated over 50% of his wealth to charity, you can read a good article on this in the January 2008 issue of Inc. The Walton family has donated less than 1% of their wealth to charity.
Here are some statistics, as well as links to some sources.
This is part 1, I'll have another commentary in a few days. I hope to hear from you, what do you think?
If you have an active group, feel free to post and provide a link or info on how to get involved.
Bryan
HEALTHCARE STATISTICS
An up-to-date compilation of states' reporting of employers whose workers are enrolled in Medicaid or state health programs is being maintained by Good Jobs First, a non-profit research group based in Washington, DC. The film does not list all 15 states that report such data. Philip Mattera, research director for Good Jobs First, has also given testimony on this healthcare data before the Maryland Senate. That testimony can be found on the Good Jobs First website [PDF file].
ALABAMA: 3,864 Children of WAL-MART Employees are Enrolled in Medicaid
- "Retail giant Wal-Mart tops the list of companies in Alabama whose employees have children on Medicaid, the [Montgomery] Advertiser reported, citing state records. Wal-Mart workers' children account for 3,864 children on the Medicaid rolls at a cost between $5.8 million and $8.2 million."
- Source: Associated Press, "Wal-Mart No. 1 in Employee Medicaid," The Decatur Daily, February 23, 2005
ARIZONA: 2,700 WAL-MART Workers on Medicaid
- According to state data provided to Capitol Media Services and reported by the Arizona Daily Star, "Close to one of every 10 Wal-Mart employees is getting health insurance paid for by Arizona taxpayers, according to figures obtained Friday from the state...In the Arizona statistics, nearly 2,700 people listed their employer as Wal-Mart out of more than 28,000 company employees in the state...The numbers came as a surprise to state Sen. Richard Miranda, D-Phoenix, who tried earlier this year to get a law requiring the DES [Department of Economic Security] to disclose the employers of people on AHCCCS. That measure was defeated amid opposition from corporate lobbyists, including Rip Wilson representing Wal-Mart."
- Source: Howard Fischer, "Wal-Mart 1st in State Aid Enrollees," Arizona Daily Star, July 30, 2005
ARKANSAS: 3971 WAL-MART Workers on Public Assistance
- "Nearly 10,000 workers with Arkansas' nine largest employers receive public welfare for themselves and their families, according to the state Department of Human Services. Wal-Mart Stores Inc., with 3,971 of its 45,106 employees on public assistance, topped the list."
- Source: Brian Baskin, "Top 9 Employers in State Have 9,698 Getting Public Aid," Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, March 17, 2005.
CONNECTICUT: 824 WAL-MART Workers Have Children in a State Heath Care Program
- According to a report prepared by the Connecticut Office of Legislative Research examining enrollment data for the HUSKY (Healthcare for UninSured Kids and Youth) program for children of low-income families, "The same employers account for the highest number of employed parents of HUSKY A [traditional Medicaid] and B [state CHIP] children. For example, Wal Mart employed the highest number of HUSKY A parents (824 in September 2004) and the second highest number of HUSKY B parents (79 in December 2004)."
- Source: Robin K. Cohen, "HUSKY A and B - Enrollment and Employer Data," Connecticut Office of Legislative Research Report 2005-R-0017, January 10, 2005.
FLORIDA: 12,300 WAL-MART Workers and their Dependents on Medicaid
- "Wal-Mart Corp., which is getting millions of dollars in state incentives to create jobs in Florida, has more employees and family members enrolled in Medicaid than any company in the state. ...The giant retailer, which has 91,000 full-time and part-time employees in Florida, has about 12,300 workers or dependents eligible for Medicaid, the growing health care program for the poor and the elderly...According to figures released Thursday by Florida's Department of Children and Families, Wal-Mart and four other large companies that receive state incentives have an estimated 29,900 employees or their family members enrolled in Medicaid...The figures suggest taxpayers may be double-subsidizing low-wage employment by paying companies to create jobs and by paying for the health care of some of those companies' employees."
- Source: Sydney P. Freedberg and Connie Humburg, "Lured Employers Now Tax Medicaid," St. Petersburg Times, March 25, 2005.
GEORGIA: 10,261 Children of WAL-MART Employees are Enrolled in PeachCare for Kids
- "A state survey found 10,261 of the 166,000 children covered by Georgia's Peach Care? for Kids health insurance in September 2002 had a parent working for Wal-Mart Stores...Wal-Mart is the state's largest private employer. But when the top four companies on the list are measured by number of PeachCare children per the number of employees in Georgia, Wal-Mart still dominates."
- Source: Andy Miller, "Wal-Mart Stands Out On Rolls Of PeachCare," Atlanta Journal-Constitution, February 27, 2004.
MASSACHUSETTS: 4,172 WAL-MART Workers and Dependents on State Health Care
- "Section 304 of Chapter 149 of the Acts of 2004 requires the Executive Office of Health and Human Services to produce a list of employers who have 50 or more employees using public health assistance each year." As a result, the Division of Health Care Finance and Policy, in collaboration with staff from the Office of Medicaid, compiled a report of employers who had 50 or more employees on MassHealth and the Uncompensated Care Pool (UCP). The report found that in 2004, Wal-Mart had 1,258 employees participating in UCP and 823 employees participating in MassHealth.
- Source: Executive Office of Health and Human Services Division of Health Care Finance and Policy, "Employers Who Have 50 or More Employees Using Public Health Assistance," February 1, 2005 (an additional data spreadsheet can be found here)
TENNESSEE: 9,617 WAL-MART Workers on TennCare
- "Wal-Mart, with about 25 percent of the company's 37,000 workers on TennCare, tops the list of businesses with employees on the expanded Medicaid program. Wal-Mart is the state's largest private employer."
- Source: Associated Press, "Study Shows Thousands of Wal-Mart Employees on TennCare," WKRN-TV Nashville, January 20, 2005.
TEXAS: 4,363 Children of WAL-MART Employees on CHIP
- "The Center for Public Policy Priorities, a non-partisan research center based in Austin, has obtained data on the 20 employers in the state with the largest number of employees whose dependents participate in the Children's Health Insurance Program. (Employer data for Medicaid are not available.) The data for February 2005 show Wal-Mart at the top of the list, with 2,333 employee families in CHIP, with an estimated 4,363 individual children enrolled."
- Source: Good Jobs First [PDF file], with data provided by the Center for Public Policy Priorities.
WISCONSIN: 1,252 WAL-MART Employees and Dependents on BadgerCare
- "The biggest employer of BadgerCare recipients was Wal-Mart, which had 809 of its employees and 443 of employee dependents enrolled in the state program in April. Providing health care for those 1,252 people costs Wisconsin about $2.7 million a year; Wal-Mart turned a profit of $10.3 billion in 2004."
- Source: Stacy Forster, "Big Companies Fill BadgerCare Rolls," Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, May 24, 2005
WAL-MART Costs Taxpayers $1,557,000,000,00 to Support its Employees
- "The Democratic Staff of the Committee on Education and the
Workforce estimates that one 200-person Wal-Mart store may result in a
cost to federal taxpayers of $420,750 per year - about $2,103 per
employee. Specifically, the low wages result in the following
additional public costs being passed along to taxpayers:
- $36,000 a year for free and reduced lunches for just 50 qualifying Wal-Mart families.
- $42,000 a year for Section 8 housing assistance, assuming 3 percent of the store employees qualify for such assistance, at $6,700 per family.
- $125,000 a year for federal tax credits and deductions for low-income families, assuming 50 employees are heads of household with a child and 50 are married with two children.
- $100,000 a year for the additional Title I expenses, assuming 50 Wal-Mart families qualify with an average of 2 children.
- $108,000 a year for the additional federal health care costs of moving into state children's health insurance programs (S-CHIP), assuming 30 employees with an average of two children qualify.
- $9,750 a year for the additional costs for low income energy assistance."
- The total figure is based on the average $420,750 per-store
figure, multiplied by 3700 (the approximate number of stores currently
in the United States).
- Source: Rep. George Miller / Democratic Staff of the Committee on Education and the Workforce, "Everyday Low Wages: The Hidden Price We All Pay for Wal-Mart", February 16, 2004.
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