While researching for my previous post regarding welfare abuse I came upon a well produced story regarding Walmart employees and qualifications for food stamps which are officially known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). This article and video are part of a much larger series that Slate and Marketplace are producing together called “The secret life of a food stamp”. This series spotlights Ohio for a portion of its data as well as its interviews. I found this series so interesting because it is in contrast to my previous post. Rather then people outright abusing the social welfare system it involves people working hard for long hours and still earning so little they qualify for government assistance.
Now I know it is a well publicized fact that a percentage of Walmart's employees live below the poverty line. The reason I found this article and accompanying video so fascinating is that is looks at the issue through the eyes of an economist and puts data to work to explain just how much money Walmart averages in a year based on food stamp income alone. and how much it would cost Walmart to increase the wages of their workforce to push them out of food stamp qualification.
The reason Walmart gets the spotlight on this issue so often is twofold. Walmart is the nations largest retailer employing a staggering amount of people in all 50 states. Walmart also pays a large portion of its workforce, the cashiers and floor associates, an average of $8.81hr. This results in people working 35-40 hours a week and still not making enough to feed themselves. In Ohio alone 15% of Walmart employees use the SNAP program.
The video is short but very informative. I listen to marketplace on a daily basis on NPR and the reporting is always very well done. I encourage everyone to read the series The Secret life of a food stamp and watch the video.
All information for my article is from American Public Medias Marketplace website in conjunction with Slate.
http://www.marketplace.org/topics/wealth-poverty/secret-life-food-stamp
https://youtu.be/vAcaeLmybCY
