3 ms·

In the nine states that responded about SNAP benefits — Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Nebraska, North Carolina, Tennessee and Washington — W

In the nine states that responded about SNAP benefits — Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Nebraska, North Carolina, Tennessee and Washington — Walmart was found to have employed about 14,500 workers receiving the benefit, followed by McDonald's with 8,780, according to Sanders's team.

willcipriano 3y ago
All welfare for the working poor is corporate welfare in reality. Walmart doesn't pay a wage that would allow its employees to be housed, showered and fed as they report to work and yet, they get employees that are and all the benefits that come with it. They should be hiring exclusively from the homeless at the rate they wish to pay.
polygamous_bat 3y ago
In a crony capitalistic world that makes perfect sense. Why not underpay people if the taxpayers will pick up the slack? Why not dump waste in the rivers if the taxpayers will clean it up? It's not like there is a penalty for doing so, beyond the occasional slap in the wrist.
tzs 3y ago
In those 9 states Walmart has 312000 employees, so that's 4.6% on SNAP. As other comments have noted there are income limits for SNAP. A single person working at Walmart full time would make too much for SNAP. So would a family of two with both people working at Walmart. It looks like same for a family of two adults working at Walmart that has 2 kids (who do not work). A family of two adults with no kids with only one adult working would be right near the boundary. Without more information on the distribution of family size and type among Walmart workers the Sanders numbers aren't very useful. To illustrate how much family composition can matter, I've known Mormon families that would have qualified for SNAP if the working parent had taken an entry level engineering job at Google, and no one would ever seriously say that an entry level Google engineering job does not pay a living wage.

willcipriano 3y ago

All welfare for the working poor is corporate welfare in reality. Walmart doesn't pay a wage that would allow its employees to be housed, showered and fed as they report to work and yet, they get employees that are and all the benefits that come with it. They should be hiring exclusively from the homeless at the rate they wish to pay.

polygamous_bat 3y ago

In a crony capitalistic world that makes perfect sense. Why not underpay people if the taxpayers will pick up the slack? Why not dump waste in the rivers if the taxpayers will clean it up? It's not like there is a penalty for doing so, beyond the occasional slap in the wrist.

tzs 3y ago

In those 9 states Walmart has 312000 employees, so that's 4.6% on SNAP. As other comments have noted there are income limits for SNAP. A single person working at Walmart full time would make too much for SNAP. So would a family of two with both people working at Walmart. It looks like same for a family of two adults working at Walmart that has 2 kids (who do not work). A family of two adults with no kids with only one adult working would be right near the boundary. Without more information on the distribution of family size and type among Walmart workers the Sanders numbers aren't very useful. To illustrate how much family composition can matter, I've known Mormon families that would have qualified for SNAP if the working parent had taken an entry level engineering job at Google, and no one would ever seriously say that an entry level Google engineering job does not pay a living wage.