Senator Slams Walmart for Spending $37.6 Billion on Buybacks While Workers Relied on Medicaid and SNAP Funded by Taxpayers

Bernie Sanders picked a fight with the country’s largest private employer this week, and he did it with a number built to sting: $37.6 billion. That’s what Walmart has poured into stock buybacks since 2020, according to the Vermont senator, who says the same money could have handed every worker a bonus worth $23,550 instead. He argues taxpayers are covering the gap left by wages too low to live on.

In a July 23 post on X, Sanders wrote that Walmart pays wages so low that many employees need Medicaid and SNAP paid for by taxpayers. He didn’t stop at the paycheck. He turned his focus to the family that controls the company, framing their fortune as proof that public assistance programs are propping up corporate profits rather than reaching the people who need them most.

Sanders saved his sharpest line for the Waltons themselves, calling the family worth $485 billion the real welfare queen, a phrase historically aimed at low-income benefit recipients now redirected at billionaires. The Walton family owns 39% of Walmart, according to Forbes. Walmart did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the senator’s claims.

This article was created with the assistance of AI and reviewed by our editorial team for accuracy and clarity.

Walmart Approved a New $30 Billion Buyback Just Months Before the Senator’s Post

Stock buybacks work simply. A company spends its own cash to repurchase shares, shrinking the number available on the open market. Fewer shares can lift earnings per share and reward remaining shareholders, especially if executives believe the stock is undervalued. Companies also lean on the tactic to guard against hostile takeovers, making it a defense move as much as an investment one.

Walmart leaned further into the strategy this year. In February, the retailer approved a fresh $30 billion share repurchase program and raised its annual dividend by 5% to 99 cents per share, marking 53 straight years of increases. The company also confirmed corporate employees received 121% of their eligible bonuses, above target and close to the prior year’s payout.

Walmart reported $713.2 billion in revenue for its latest fiscal year, up 4.7% from the year before. The retailer employs 1.6 million people across the United States as of the end of its 2026 fiscal year, making it the nation’s largest private sector employer and keeping its wage practices under constant scrutiny from lawmakers, labor groups and the public.

Amazon Workers on Federal Aid Tripled Between 2020 and 2025, Government Data Shows

The debate didn’t start with a tweet. A U.S. Government Accountability Office study released this month found that Walmart and Amazon workers rank among the top three groups of employees receiving Medicaid and SNAP benefits nationwide. The number of Amazon workers relying on that assistance tripled between 2020 and 2025, based on data pulled from 11 states.

Sanders pointed directly to those findings in a statement to the Washington Post, saying American taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize the starvation wages of large corporations like Walmart and Amazon. He called it beyond unacceptable that corporations owned by some of the wealthiest people on the planet are effectively drawing corporate welfare from the federal government while their own workers depend on public programs.

Gig economy companies including Uber, Lyft, DoorDash and Instacart were grouped together in the same research and also landed in the top three for workers on federal aid. McDonald’s and Dollar General appeared in the report too. Nationally, 23 million households currently receive SNAP benefits, and roughly 67 million people were enrolled in Medicaid as of March 2026.

A Walmart Deli Worker of 20 Years Still Can’t Afford to Retire, One Commenter Wrote

Reaction to Sanders’ post split fast. Supporters shared stories of longtime employees struggling to get by. One commenter described a 70-year-old cousin who has worked more than 20 years in a Walmart deli and still cannot afford to retire, despite working full time. Critics pushed back, arguing publicly traded companies answer to investors, not senators, and that higher wages would simply raise prices for customers.

Others noted Walmart employees can leave for better-paying jobs if they choose. But many workers at the country’s largest employers hold part-time positions, often wanting more hours than they get. Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis data shows part-time work has climbed above pre-pandemic levels. Angela Rachidi of the American Enterprise Institute told the Washington Post that part-time work alone won’t make ends meet for a fully capable worker.

Rachidi’s comment cuts to the real dispute buried under the senator’s viral number. Behind the buybacks and the bonuses sits a basic question about the American safety net: whether it exists to help full-time workers through hard stretches, or whether it has quietly become the system absorbing the cost of part-time schedules at some of the most profitable companies in the country.