Walmart workers strike as report says wages so low many can't feed families

CLEVELAND, Ohio - Many Walmart workers serve as poster children for food insecurity because their low pay doesn't allow them to adequately feed their families, according to a new report.

Food insecurity isn't unending hunger, but it may cause a family to spend at least a few days a month staring in anguish at bare cupboards and an empty refrigerator.

"Walmart's Hunger Games: How America's Largest Employer and Richest Family Worsen the Hunger Crisis," was released Thursday as some Walmart workers in Cincinnati and Dayton are scheduled to go on a one-day strike. The workers are calling on the company to increase the pay of sales clerks, cashiers and other lower-level employees to $15 an hour. The action serves as a prelude to nationwide strikes scheduled for next week on Black Friday.

Walmart pays most of these workers under $9 an hour, said the report's author, Michele Simon, a public health lawyer, who says she specializes "in legal strategies to counter corporate tactics that harm the public's health."

"All the factors that are contributing to poverty in America exist among Walmart workers," she said. "Walmart is America's largest poverty incubator."

Simon said 49 million people suffer from hunger in this country, not because of unemployment, but because of low-wage work. She said as the nation's largest employer, Walmart bears much of the blame for putting business practices into place that have ultimately led to fewer working Americans being able to feed their families. Full Story