Bernie Sanders Now Fires at Walmart for Cheating Employees
Bernie Sanders is firing at Walmart after stating the retail corporation is taking advantage of its employees.
Walmart (NASDAQ: WMT), which employs over 1.6 million people in the United States alone and approximately 2.1 million worldwide, has come under fire by a very vocal Bernie Sanders.
In a post shared on X, the senator scrutinized Walmart for spending a whopping $37.6 billion in stock buybacks.
A stock buyback, or stock repurchase, is when a company buys its own outstanding shares from the open market or directly from shareholders.
This corporate action reduces the total number of available shares, which increases the ownership stake of remaining shareholders and typically boosts the Earnings Per Share (EPS).
Sanders says the amount Walmart has spent on buying its own shares could have been enough to give all their workers $23,550 in bonuses.
“Instead, Walmart pays wages so low that many of their workers need Medicaid & SNAP paid for by taxpayers,” the senator said.
“The real welfare queen is the Walton family worth $485 billion.”
Sanders, a vocal critic of billionaires, capitalists, and massive corporations has been putting giants like Walmart and Amazon on the hot seat.
He shared a publication by The Washington Post on a case study showing a spike in workers on SNAP (food stamps) and Medicaid.
According to the report, the top five employers of working adult SNAP recipients in 2025 included App-based food delivery and ride-hailing platforms, Walmart, Amazon, McDonald’s, and Dollar General.
These companies were also the top five employers of non-disabled, non-elderly adult Medicaid enrollees.
Bernie Sanders Speaks on Corporate Greed
“American taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize the starvation wages of large corporations like Walmart and Amazon,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) said in a written statement.
“It is beyond unacceptable that these corporations, owned by some of the wealthiest people on the planet, are receiving corporate welfare from the federal government.”
The number of people requiring government assistance has increased significantly over recent years.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that about 13.8 million working Americans were enrolled in Medicaid in 2024, up from 12 million in 2020, despite many working full-time.
Meanwhile, 10.6 million mostly full-time workers relied on SNAP for groceries, up from 9 million in 2020.
A spokesperson for Dollar Tree said the company continually “enhance[s employee] pay and benefits to meet their evolving needs.”
Sanders has frequently called out the extreme gap between executive pay and average worker wages, noting that top executives make thousands of times more than hourly employees while the Walton family amasses vast fortune.
He has led congressional investigations into how major retailers benefit from tax breaks while failing to provide living wages and full benefits.
Sanders has also pushed federal policies targeting large profitable corporations to stop what he terms “corporate welfare” and mandate better compensation.
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