A few brief remarks on Walmart
We examine some of the effects of Walmart on a local economy,
and the nation’s. There is about one store per 100,000 in the US, each with average revenues of
about $110 Million. The revenue of a
small retail establishment is about $3 Million, so a Walmart displaces about 35
small retailers, generally locally owned businesses which previously helped
provide much of the community leadership.
If we include the earnings of the owners of these businesses, the payroll of the Walmart is
less than that previously provided by the sum of the small retailers, so the
employment situation is also worsened when a Walmart moves in.
This calculation, of course, does not include the benefit of
the increased consumer surplus provided by Walmart’s always lower prices. However, if these benefits are limited to an
increase in purchases of consumer goods and services, as we would expect since
the consumer surplus is widely dispersed among Walmart customers, we would not
expect this to improve the capital situation of the community. Indeed, the
value existing capital in the community is severely reduced. Downtown
commercial rents, for instance, would be severely depressed, as the value of
the buildings themselves.
In compensation for this damage, Walmart paid taxes of $7 Billion on $22 Billion profits, or
31.8%. But: Public assistance for its
employees cost the US
government $6.2 Billion last year, so in
effect Walmart paid $800 Million taxes on $15 Billion profits, or slightly over 5%. If instead it had paid its
employees the $6.2 Billion more, so they would not need to collect public
assistance, it would still have to pay 31.8% on $15.8 Billion. To raise the
salary of their employees $1, roughly, they would have to pay out $2. The people at
Walmart Headquarters are probably smart, so presumably they have made this
calculation also, and given present government policy, optimized it. Indeed, as the reference indicates, this is
probably general behavior among retailers, and other low wage industries. An interesting problem for economists.
This calculation is for 2013:
Many of Walmart's employees did receive a raise last year, somewhere between $1 and $3 so the figures have changed a little.
But not a lot.
Fast food companies do pretty much the same thing:
So we're probably talking about a comparable manipulation of their tax bill, as well. Nominally, retailers seem to pay a lot more in taxes than they really do, if we subtract the billions and billions of dollars the government has to fork out to support the retailers' under-paid employees. So these retailers are not at all quite the good citizens they try to appear to be.
Clearly, a minimum wage where taxpayers have to supplement the worker's income for them to reach subsistence is inadequate.
Edited and corrected: 12/2/2019
Edited and corrected: 12/2/2019
