The American taxpayer subsidizes Walmart to an incredible degree by outsourcing security to local police departments and by relying on welfare programs to make up for unlivable wages:

https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-walmart-crime/

>There’s nothing inevitable about the level of crime at Walmart. It’s the direct, if unintended, result of corporate policy. Beginning as far back as 2000, when former CEO Lee Scott took over, an aggressive cost-cutting crusade led many stores to deteriorate. The famed greeters were removed, taking away a deterrent to theft at the porous entrances and exits. Self-checkout scanners replaced many cashiers. Walmart added stores faster than it hired employees. The company has one worker for every 524 square feet of retail space, a 19 percent increase in space per employee from a decade ago.

http://www.citypages.com/news/twin-cities-legislators-say-wa...

>Rather than hiring their own security to deal with petty crimes, they say, Walmart is forcing taxpayers to subsidize security for its stores.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2014/04/15/report-...

>"It found that a single Walmart Supercenter cost taxpayers between $904,542 and $1.75 million per year, or between $3,015 and $5,815 on average for each of 300 workers."

Walmart has profit margins in the low single digits. Not what I would call a very profitable company.

https://ycharts.com/companies/WMT/profit_margin

I don't understand why profit margin is being conflated with profits?

https://beta.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/walmarts-4t...

Indicates Walmart $3.69 billion, or $1.27 per share in the 4th quarter. By comparison Apple made 11.5 Bil in the 2nd quarter last year.

https://money.cnn.com/2018/07/31/technology/apple-q3-earning...

That doesn't seem like a non-profitable company

Profit margin, or profit per employee, indicates how much room the company has to pay more to its employees if they wanted. User minikites commented that business models that have to pay poverty wages aren't good business models, to which Bostonian responded that "Walmart is a very profitable company, and its wages are not high."

I inferred Bostonian to mean that because Walmart is very profitable, and it has low wages, then it shows that minikites' comment of "business models having to pay poverty wages are not good business models" to be wrong.

To which I am responding that because Walmart's profit margins are tiny, implying that they have to pay poverty wages in order to stay in business, which in my opinion is not a good business model as it doesn't leave much slack or moat.

Of course, "good business model" is subjective, and some could consider Walmart's efficiency to be a good business model, but I am looking at it from the perspective of an equity owner looking for returns.

That's a pretty disingenuous presentation of Walmart's profit. The margin matters little when referring to them as a very profitable company. They reported $3.6 billion in their most recent quarter[0]. I'm unsure of what kind of world we're living in when $3.6 billion in profit is not very profitable. The prior quarter was $3.8 billion in profit. And another $3.7 billion in Q1 2019.

So ... $11.1 billion in profit so far this year. Sounds very profitable to me.

[0]: https://ycharts.com/companies/WMT/net_income