There were a total of 14,637 BadgerCare enrollees in 2013 associated with those top 25. That means that retail workers accounted for approximately 48% of BadgerCare enrollees associated with the top 25 employer, profitable companies (some very profitable) that can afford to pay their employees a living wage yet choose not to, foisting their obligation onto the backs of Wisconsin's taxpayers.
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There were approximately 3061 Walmart-related enrollees in Wisconsin in 2013, or nearly 21% of all BadgerCare enrollees in the State employed by these 25 employers alone.
That means that in addition to the aforementioned subsidies, the people of Wisconsin further subsidize these companies, and that's not including SNAP benefits, school lunches, rent assistance, heat assistance, and Earned Income Tax Credits, etc.
When people of Wisconsin hear statistics like these they often think of Milwaukee because it's the most populated city and county in the state. But low and behold! The county with the highest concentration of BadgerCare enrollees is Wood County, with approximately 44% of its population that work for one of the top 25 offenders being forced to rely on public assistance to meet their and their families healthcare needs. La Crosse County comes in second, with approximately 31%.
If you listen to people like Paul Ryan, as fierce a class warrior as he is hypocrictical, it's the 'inner city' culture that's at the root of poverty. Yet here's another case where the facts show how wrong he is. Being wrong doesn't bother someone like Ryan. Or Gov. Walker, or Sen. Johnson, or...well, the list is too long.
They'll tell you that all you need is a brown bag for your lunch and a job, any job, and the good life will come to you. Sure, that 'good life' may mean working for minimum wages (which they think are too high already) 20 hours a week at two or three jobs, and that's if you can even get those.
They complain about people becoming reliant on government yet pass laws that make that outcome certain, like giving subsidies for companies moving jobs out of the country and 'right-to-work' laws that weaken workers ability to organize for better wages and working conditions.
It'll drive you nuts if you think about how these guys operate for too long. Ryan cries about people feeling entitled to Social Security (that might be because they've paid into it all their working lives) yet had no moral compunction against taking S.S. money when he needed it to finish school and get a degree, even though he hadn't paid a dime into the system.
And let's not forget old St. Ron, who didn't become interested in how high taxes were until he himself became wealthy. Then there's Ron Johnson, the 'job creator' that didn't create any job other than his own when he married his wife and into her family business. Listening to him, you'd think his success was due to him and his bootstraps and nothing more.
The Republican Party has become the party of No. As in No Credibility. They know that as long as they speak the words enough times, there will be sufficient numbers of voters that will simply believe it, nay, want to believe it, so it doesn't matter how off-the-mark they are.
Being wrong doesn't matter to these guys because it's not about credibility. It's about advertising.
