The staff of the House Committee on Education and Workforce estimates that because of the low wages of Wal-Mart, a Wal-Mart employee may result in a cost to federal taxpayers of around $2,103 in the form of federal public assistance programs. With approximately 1.3 million US employees and growing, this amounts to a total of $2.7 billion a year.

The breakdown of these estimated costs to taxpayers looks like this:

Per year	$2,733,900,000
Per month	$227,825,000
Per week	$52,575,000
Per day	$7,510,714
Per hour	$312,946
Per minute	$5,216
Per second	$87

We have a health care crisis in America. Large corporations, like Wal-Mart, are contributing to this crisis by failing to live up to their responsibilities.

By paying sub-standard wages and benefits in order to increase profitability, large corporations are shifting costs onto taxpayers by forcing employees to rely on publicly funded health care programs and for other public assistance services.

In response to this crisis, please stand behind your fellow citizens in signing your name as a Citizen Co-Sponsor of the “Fair Share For Health Care” Act by clicking here.

Specifically, the Committee estimates that the low wages result in the following additional public costs being passed along to taxpayers for an average 200-employee store:"

• $36,000 a year for free and reduced lunches for just 50 qualifying Wal-Mart families.
• $42,000 a year for low income housing assistance, assuming 3 percent of the store employees qualify for such assistance, at $6,700 per family.
• $125,000 a year for federal tax credits and deductions for low-income families, assuming 50 employees are heads of household with a child and 50 are married with two children.
• $100,000 a year for the additional Title I expenses, assuming 50 Wal-Mart families qualify with an average of 2 children.
• $108,000 a year for the additional federal health care costs of moving into state children’s health insurance programs (S-CHIP), assuming 30 employees with an average of two children qualify.
• $9,750 a year for the additional costs for low income energy assistance.

To read the full report by the Staff of the House Committee on Education and Workforce, click here.