In Friday’s Wall Street Journal, Shelly Banjo and Annie Gasparro reported “Walmart estimates it rakes in about 18 percent of total U.S. outlays on food stamps. That would mean it pulled in $14 billion of the $80 billion the USDA says was appropriated for food stamps in the year ended in September 2012.”
Think about that for a minute. Walmart accounts for about 10 percent of total U.S. sales but gets 18 percent of the nation’s food-stamp-related sales. That means it punches well above its weight compared with other retailers. Put another way, Walmart customers are far more likely than shoppers at other stores to finance their purchases with food stamps.
For stores like Walmart, which sells groceries and other goods to the same customers, the food-stamp cut will be a double-whammy. They’ll have fewer funds to spend on food, and they will likely compensate for the reduced income by spending less on discretionary goods, like Christmas presents.