Wal-Mart and Low Wages

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Wal-Mart: Always Low Wages Always Wal-Mart’s poverty-level wages often make their employees eligible for government assistance programs such as health care, food stamps, subsidized school lunches and subsidized housing (Wright). “Instead of providing affordable health insurance, Wal-Mart encourages its employees to sign up for publicly funded programs, dodging its health care costs and passing them onto taxpayers”(Wright 7). According to the film “Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price,” Wal-Mart costs taxpayers $1,557,000,000 to supports its employees. That is just one effect of Wal-Mart’s low prices. This retail giant can afford to provide better wages and benefits to its employees. The low prices we pay when shopping at Wal-Mart has to affect someone or something somewhere. Bargains for the customer means, low pay and insufficient benefits for the employees. It would seem that Americans’ greed for great bargains and the lowest prices is also putting fellow Americans into poverty, allowing them to shop nowhere else but Wal-Mart. Even though Wal-Mart saves families money, some families still go without or live very lean. How can one be expected to pay high premiums and then their share of a the doctor bills when making minimal wages? In an article by John Miller he states that, “Wal-Mart according to its own reports, pays an average of $9.68 an hour. That is 12.4% below the national average wage for retail workers, even after adjusting for geography”(12). Wal-Mart also does not allow overtime and has on occasion asked employees to work “off the clock” the employees comply as they don’t want to be fired, even though what is being done is not right. That is another reason income is so low for its employees they are not being paid for the work they are doing. 41% to 46% of Wal-Mart’s employees use the company health insurance, while nationally 66%
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