Most people who shop at Wal-Mart or Sam’s Club are doing it for one of two reasons: first, because they often have lower prices than other stores for groceries, housewares, electronics, and other goods; or second, because it’s literally the only place to buy these things in their town.
While we might certainly criticize Walmart’s impact on local economies, running “mom and pop” stores out of business with their impossibly low prices, the company is also the largest employer in the US, with around 2.2 million employees.
All told, the big box store created by Sam Walton in 1962 has become the company bringing in the most revenue in the entire world, and Walton’s heirs are certainly benefiting from that fact. There are at least 5 members of the Walton family with a net worth of $1 billion or more; the three living children of Sam Walton have a combined net worth of $98 billion. When you add in other family members, the Walton family’s net worth works out to around $130 billion.
This is interesting in contrast to the average wages paid by Walmart to its employees. Labor unions and other groups have long criticized employee compensation, and many liberal think tanks have called it an unconscionable example of “corporate welfare”, given that so many of Walmart’s employees must rely on government services (paid by tax payers) like food stamps, temporary assistance and subsidized housing, just to get by.
Whether their practices are ethical or in the best interests of the national economy is up for debate, but there’s no doubt that Walmart has rocketed to success in a way that few probably would have imagined in the 1960s. Given the continued success of the company in the stock market, and the fact that the Walton family are 52% owners, we can only expect their net worth to grow for the indefinite future.
