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Desrtopa comments on On Walmart, And Who Bears Responsibility For the Poor - Less Wrong
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I haven't scrolled through all the existing comments to see if someone else has already raised this point, but while, in general, I would agree that it's usually better for people to have poorly compensated employment that leaves them in need of some public support than to have no employment whatsoever and be even more heavily reliant on public support, I think this is not necessarily the most useful context in which to view institutions like Walmart.
In general, Walmart doesn't create jobs where, otherwise, no jobs would have existed. Instead, it usually displaces jobs that would otherwise be created by smaller stores or chains which it can undercut by being able to more effectively employ economies of scale. While those economies of scale can deliver genuine benefit to consumers, in offering its employees such low pay and benefits that they need public assistance, Walmart creates an illusory benefit to consumers over smaller stores, by lowering prices and thus making themselves a more appealing shopping destination, but making the public shoulder the hidden cost of the employees' low level of compensation.
wait, in that case isn't Walmart mostly a subsidy to disadvantaged people? The vast majority of taxes are paid by the wealthy, but the vast majority of Walmart customers are the poor. This means that they get the benefit of cheaper products while paying little to none of the costs.
Well, the majority of taxes aren't paid by the lower class, but I wouldn't say the majority of taxes are paid by the wealthy; for those who have enough money, there are sufficient tax loopholes for them to pay less taxes by proportion of their income (Warren Buffet has for some time now been paying a lower proportion of his income in tax than his secretary). So Walmart would mostly be subsidized by the middle and upper-middle classes.
While Walmart's customer's certainly skew lower class, as to whether the "vast majority" are lower class, I couldn't say.
The top 1 percent pay 36 percent of taxes while only being 19 percent of total income. The loophole thing, despite egregious examples like buffet, is wildly exaggerated.
Ialdabaoth already raised this point, but to put some numbers to it, while the the top 1 percent pays 36 of income taxes, people in that percentile make less than 40% of their income through salary and wages; most of the remainder comes from investments, which are not covered under the income tax and are taxed at a lower rate.
Be careful that the same definition of "income" is being used in both cases; I believe that the definition Warren Buffet was using included capital gains (which is specifically not taxed as 'income', which is what your first link counts). Capital gains are still taxed at 15%, so if the top 1% gain most of their 19% share through capital gains (or if the share is higher than 19% when capital gains are included), then it's likely they ARE paying less.
http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_24065108/wealth-gap-widens-richest-1-percent-earn-biggest according to this capital gains bumps it up to 22.5 percent.
Which is still well below the top income tax bracket of 39.6%.
Given the income tax rates, capital gains tax rates, and the average proportion from both sources composing the income of the top 1%, the average rate of tax on people in that bracket, barring any use of additional tax limiting strategies, should be somewhat under 28%, the rate paid at the $87,851 - $183,250 income tax bracket. The very wealthy, whose income is more dominated by investment revenue, would tend towards a lower rate.
If we categorize the wealthy by total wealth rather than yearly revenue though, then the top 1% pays a much lower proportion of their total wealth in tax.
So while Walmart displacing jobs that leave employees in need of public assistance can be seen as a subsidy on the lower classes, it's not one where the wealthy are paying out either a majority or a disproportionate amount relative to their wealth.