The Family Business

Walmart earned $16 billion last year (it just reported a 9 percent increase in earnings in the third quarter of 2012, to $3.6 billion), the lion’s share of which went instead to Walmart’s shareholders. Between 2007 and 2010, while median family wealth fell by 39 percent, the wealth of the Walton family members rose from $73 billion to $89 billion…In 2007, it was reported that the Walton family wealth was as large as the bottom 35 million families in the wealth distribution combined, or 30 percent of all American families. And in 2010, as the Walton’s wealth has risen and most other Americans’ wealth declined, it is now the case that the Walton family wealth is as large as the bottom 49 million families in the wealth distribution (constituting 41 percent of all American families) combined.