Wal-Mart, Low Wages & Health Care =
Public Subsidies, Medicaid and Corporate Welfare

• Wal-Mart's health insurance is so costly that only 41-46% of its workers can afford it-compared to 66-72% at similar businesses (Congressional report issued by Rep. George Miller of California in February 2004).



• Wal-Mart spends an average of $3,500 per employee on health care-about 40% less than the average for all U.S. corporations (Mercer Human Resources Consulting).



• New employees must wait six months to get health care; coverage for many pre-existing conditions does not kick in for a year; deductibles of up to $1,000 are triple the norm; Part-time Wal-Mart workers have to wait two years to get on the health care plan, on average (Kaiser Family Foundation).



• By comparison, unionized Safeway workers here in Bend get full health care coverage 60 days after hiring, provided they have worked a total of 80 hours in the past month (20 hours @ week). Moreover, Safeway pays over $400 a month @ employee into a health insurance trust that provides excellent benefits for Safeway employees. (United Food and Commercial Workers union contract with Safeway).



• Many Wal-Mart workers are forced to rely on public assistance-which costs taxpayers an average of $420,750 per year for a Wal-Mart that employs at least 200 people. Combined employment at Wal-Mart's Bend and Redmond stores is 450 workers, according to Economic Development of Central Oregon. Wal-Mart workers need help for health care, food, shelter, energy assistance, education, school lunch programs, and other programs to aid low-income people. (Congressional report issued by Rep. George Miller of California in February 2004).



• 25 percent of Wal-Mart workers in Tennessee are enrolled in the state health care plan for the poor and uninsured. Over 10,000 children of Wal-Mart workers are in the Georgia health plan for low-income families. Almost 4,000 children from Wal-Mart families are on Medicaid in Alabama. Over 13 percent of Wal-Mart's 91,000 full and part time workers in Florida are on Medicaid. Five percent of Wal-Mart workers in Iowa are on Medicaid.



• Last year, Wal-Mart spent over $2.4 million to defeat California's Proposition 72, which would have required all large employers to provide basic health insurance to their workers.



• A full time Wal-Mart worker (34 or more hours a week, according to Wal-Mart) makes a poverty wage. At $7.50 an hour (starting pay at the Central Oregon Wal-Mart's), a 34-hour a week job provides a before tax annual income of just $13,260. This is $2,410 below the 2004 federal poverty level of $15,670 for a family of three (Personnel managers at two local Wal-Mart stores). A full-time job should get you out of poverty, not keep you in it. Wal-Mart wages keep people in poverty.



• For a company that made $10 billion in profits last year-up a billion-Wal-Mart gets an awful lot of taxpayer-funded corporate welfare.



• Put Our Community First! www.notanotherwalmart.org