6 Members Of The Walton Family (Walmart) Have As Much Money As The Bottom Third Of The US

An extraordinary statistic tweeted by Idealab CEO Bill Gross from a Davos session he is attending:

"The 6 members of the Walmart family have as much combined wealth as the entire bottom 1/3 of the United States." #WEF

— Bill Gross (@Bill_Gross) January 24, 2013

I assume Bill is referring to the "Walton" family. Regardless, what it means is that Walmart is basically a gigantic vaccuum cleaner that sucks money from poorer and lower-middle-class Americans and sprays it into the bank accounts of the Waltons.

Too bad Walmart doesn't pay its poor and lower-middle-class workers enough to lift them out of near-poverty.

(The average Walmart associate wage is about $12 an hour. That's about $25,000 a year--close to the poverty line.)

(And, no, I'm not a "Marxist." But I do think that one of the ways to fix our crappy economy is to persuade companies to pay people more. Walmart's associates are dedicating their lives to the company. And Walmart a mind-bogglingly successful and excellent company, barely pays them enough to lift them out of poverty.)