Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Walmart's "Giveaway"

Don't be fooled by Walmart's announcement that it is raising its lowest wage to $10 per hour for full-time workers by 2016. The wage increase is just pocket change to the Walmart heirs. According to a recent BloomburgBusiness article that focused on just one Walmart heir: “At the current rate, it would take a full-time Walmart employee working 12 hours a day more than a million years to earn the equivalent of Christy Walton's net worth, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.”


The Economic Policy Institute points out, the six Walmart heirs now have more wealth than the bottom 42 percent of Americans combined, up from 30 percent in 2007. Between 2007 and 2010, the collective wealth of the six richest Waltons rose from $73 billion to $90 billion, while the wealth of the average American declined from $126,000 to $77,000 (13 million Americans have negative net worth). Six people (Walmart heirs) have passive net worth - the money is inherited through stock; they don't need to do anything to earn it - equal to more than the bottom 40% of the people in the US;

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