Walmart owners earn more in a minute than employees do in a year

NEW DELHI: An average Walmart employee earns less in a year than what the Walton family, owners of the retail behemoth, earns in a minute — a fact cross checked by Washington Post after the latest 2020 US Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders tweeted about the income disparity between the owners and their employees.
The Walton family owns 51.11% of the company, which means it controls 1,508,965,874 shares out of 2,952,478,528 total shares — given that the company declared a dividend of $2.08 for the last year, it works out to a dividend income alone of $3,138,649,017.92 ($3.14 billion approximately) for the entire year for the Walton family.
Starlings & underlings: Given a standard work-week of 40 hours — 8 hours a day for 5 days a week — the Walton family earns $1.51 million an hour, or $25,149 per minute. Interestingly, Walmart defines a full time work-week as 34 hours a week, instead of the usual 40.
While a Walmart union-backed website says that the company pays $9 per hour, which translates into $16,000 per year for a 34-hour work-week, PayScale, a US based comparative salary research firm pegs the average Walmart employee wages at $12 per hour, including managers.
The company though, pegs its average hourly wages at $11 an hour — which works out to $22,880 annually, assuming a 40-hour work-week, which is the maximum allowed under US law without paying overtime.

Salt on wounds: Adding insult to injury is the fact that in the US, dividend income is taxed at a much lower rate that what is applicable on salaries or wages. While most employees won't have to pay tax given the size of their wages, the US tax rate on incomes above $612,000 is 37% compared to just 20% on income from dividends.
However, while the Walmart employees still have to fork out 6.2% as Social Security tax, the Walton family is exempt from that as its income exceeds $132,000 — the eligibility criteria for escaping Social Security tax. Now, who says it doesn't pay to be rich — certainly not the Waltons!