How Wal-Mart became a welfare queen

On Thursday, Bloomberg reported that President Barack Obama’s push for increasing the minimum wage is being opposed by corporations who would have to pony up the money and by the politicians who support them.
 
Mark Pryor, a Republican senator from Arkansas, home of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., is a vocal opponent of any increase in the minimum wage, even though he admits that a new minimum wage of $10.10 an hour “still isn’t a whole lot of money.”
 
In a Bloomberg report published in November, writer Barry Ritholtz points out that Wal-Mart, the country’s largest private-sector employer, also benefits from taking the most taxpayer-supported aid for its workers. Its employees are among the largest group of Medicare and food-stamp recipients, qualifying for, on average, $1,000 of public, taxpayer-footed assistance.
 
The article says that although what corporations like Wal-Mart is doing isn’t illegal, they are clearly taking advantage of the system and that it is time to update the outdated rules that allow them to become the country’s largest “welfare queens.”

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