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Walton
Dynasty
Ink,
watercolor, Tempera on Paper and Digital,
Jan,
2018
11 "x 16"
In
early 2018 the Wal-mart the retail giant finally raised their
workers pay from $9 an hour to $11 and passed out some bonuses.
This was widely reported and hailed as a big corporation sharing
some of the huge windfall that they got from the trump/republican
taxcut and job act. It was hard to find a story that mentioned
the incredible profits that the family that owns walmart brings
in every year and what a small percentage of that wealth was
actually shared with employees.
Nor was there any mention of the huge
tax subsidies that walmart gets for opening and
operating their stores, or the fact that they tend to keep
employees below a 40 hour work week so as not to pay them
benefits. In 2014 it was
reported that taxpayer subsidize walmart workers
by about 6..2 billion dollars in food stamps, medicaid, and
subsidised housing. Walmart also has a damaging effect on
local business because of their purchasing scale is so large
that they can undercut local business making them no longer
able to function. So when walmart closes stores (they closed
65 the same day as announcing the pay raise and bonuses this
was widely reported but with none of the background) they
leave communities without local grocery, hardware, appliance,
and clothing stores forcing residents to drive long distance
for basic supplies. None of walmarts profits would be possible
without their employees and customers who they treat with
so little respect.
Illustration
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