utter nonsense. Walmart makes 131 BILLION dollars a year in pure profit [1]. Obviuosly, forcing walmart to pay their employees more could lead to them making less profit and the poor being better off.

EDIT: Basically there is no correlation between walmart's costs and how much the consumer pays.

[1] http://www.wikinvest.com/stock/Wal-Mart_(WMT)/Data/Gross_Pro...

The page you linked doesn't tell the whole story:

http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/wmt/financials

The ~100+ billion number is revenue - cost of goods. Actual profit after _all_ expenses is around ~13 billion or so. Big number? Yes, but only around 3-4% profit margin. And it's been declining.

Walmart has 2.3 million employees. $13 billion doesn't make for huge pay increases when you've got that many people to cover.

Gross profit. Not Net profit. They made a tenth of that after all other costs are considered. [1] 13.6 billion spread over 2.1 million employees works out to about a $6500 per year raise or about $3.10 per hour given 2087 working hours in a year before they're in the red. It'd help a bit, but nothing life changing. You're vastly overestimating their ability to raise wages without raising prices.

[1]http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/wmt/financials

Are you sure that a 35% increase in sallary wouldn't be life changing for a person making 18k a year? https://www.glassdoor.com/Hourly-Pay/Walmart-Sales-Associate...

>forcing walmart to pay their employees more could lead to them making less profit and the poor being better off.

What's stopping them from passing on costs to consumers, given they have eliminated all competition in large parts of the country.

The same thing stopping them from rasing prices right away without any change in the law.

walmart and target pay the same wages.

How does that effect the conversation?

For one thing, sometimes you can't get it when you need it. In our area, there's an 8 year waiting list on housing assistance.

>> ...Walmart uses their resources to take advantage of current (broken) laws to...pay...pennies...and forc[e]...the government to pay the rest of a living wage.

> What difference does it make where the money is coming from?

Because taxpayers are subsidizing Walmart's business, for one. That's unacceptable, especially if the subsidy is the result of conscious policy on Walmart's part.

> If we force Walmart to pay more, low-income ppl who shop will have to pay higher prices as opposed to now where all the taxpayers are footing the bill.

They will also get paid more to pay those prices, and the taxpayers will not longer be subsidizing Walmart's profits (if the grandparent is correct).

> Because taxpayers are subsidizing Walmart's business

We can assume then that taxpayers are subsidizing all businesses with employees making under $11 and hour, so why isn't the government changing minimum wage laws from $7.25/hr and $2.35/hr

There's something especially slimy about the #1 company in the Fortune 500 consciously doing it. And by it, I mean pay its employees so little they need to go on welfare, and then directing them to the welfare office.

> so why isn't the government changing minimum wage laws from $7.25/hr and $2.35/hr

Because it's been captured by people who like to pay their employees as little as possible.

Slimy about consciously, doing what? Paying a minimum of 122% of what they are legally required to? Paying an average of 191% of what they're legally required to?

[If nearly doubling "expectations" is slimy, what does it take to exceed expectations]

You're confusing legality with ethics and morality. You can behave can quite unethically and immorally while still meeting or exceeding legal requirements.