Most people know that Wal-Mart hurts local businesses, by intentionally running them out of business with it’s low prices.

Some people know that Wal-Mart hurts consumers by raising it’s prices as soon as it run’s all the other businesses into the ground.

A few people may even know that it also hurts local communities when, after it runs all the local businesses out of business, it closes it’s stores. Often times after getting the local communities to foot the bill for the costs of construction of the building and roads for the Wal-Mart store.

What many people don’t know is that WE, the tax payers are subsidizing those low prices. They pay their workers SO poorly and have such HORRIBLE health care benefits that most of their employee most resort to public assistance programs to survive.

CEO Lee Scott explained Wal-Mart’s health care was so dismal that employees were better off living off of the state:

“There are government assistance programs out there that are so lucrative it’s hard to be competitive, and it’s expensive to be competitive.”

Get the entire story from the Think Progress Blog

States have been suing Wal-mart to make them either PAY their employees enough to live or pay the states back for all the money they spend making up the difference. This is the same sort of reasoning behind the states suing the cigarette companies. Studies showed that the states, and therefore the tax payers, were picking up the health care tab for all these smokers smoking related health problems. Like wise we the tax payers are paying to subsidize Wal-Mart’s low prices by picking up the cost of living and health care for their underpaid employees.