Walmart recently announced it would stop providing health benefits to part-time employees and increase health insurance premiums starting in January of next year.
Approximately 30,000 part-time employees will be affected and the health insurance increase is on bi-weekly premiums for the most popular insurance plan for Walmart employees. Walmart currently has more than 4,000 Walmart stores and 600 Sam’s Club stores in the United States alone. Nearly two-thirds of Walmart’s employees earn less than $25,000 annually and many of them are on food stamps.
This new policy would put a burden on the already difficult financial status to many of Walmart’s 1.3 million employees in the United States. This change will also affect taxpayers since the federal government would have to taken on the health care costs for low-income Walmart employees.
Does the world’s largest company by revenue, according to Fortune Global 500 list, really need to have budget cuts at the expense of workers that are already barely making enough money?
It does not make sense for Walmart to cut health benefits for its employees when William S. Simon, CEO and President of Walmart until August, earned $1.5 million in bonus last year in addition to his $10 million salary and stock awards.
While it is normal for executives to earn a significantly larger amount than regular employees, Simon earned more money in a day than his employees do in a year.
Walmart also announced a new dress code last month that costs employees out-of-pocket expenses. While the new regulation consists of white or navy collared shirts with khaki or black pants, not all the employees own these clothes and many are not economically stable enough to purchase new set of clothes for work.
Walmart, as a multinational retail chain with net sales of more than $470 billion for 2013 alone, should not cut into its employee’s health benefits as a way to cut budges. This act of budgeting may save the selfish company some money but will negatively affect many American households and add to the list of why Walmart is a vile company.
Unsigned editorials represent the opinion of the Campus Times Editorial Board.