'The real welfare queen': Bernie Sanders says Walmart spent $37.6B on buybacks as workers lean on Medicaid and SNAP benefits

Danni SantanaSat, July 25, 2026 at 1:30 PM UTC

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Sen. Bernie Sanders isn’t shy about calling out billionaires and their spending habits in public. This week, the democratic socialist took to X to criticize Walmart, the country’s largest private sector employer, on social media.

According to Sanders, Walmart has executed $37.6 billion in stock buyback purchases since 2020. That money could instead have been used to give all of its employees $23,550 bonuses, he says.

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“Walmart pays wages so low that many of their workers need Medicaid and SNAP paid for by taxpayers,” he wrote in a July 23 post.

Stock buybacks can be lucrative for publicly-held companies if they believe their stock is undervalued. This can, in turn, return more value to shareholders by decreasing the amount of public shares available as well as improve the company’s earnings per share. Public companies may also leverage the strategy to avoid hostile takeovers.

But with Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits a consistent point of debate in Congress, Sanders is seemingly pointing the finger at companies like Walmart that have the power to reduce the number of people receiving public benefits by simply paying them more.

“The real welfare queen is the Walton family worth $485 billion,” he said. The Walton family currently owns 39% of Walmart, according to Forbes.

Walmart did not immediately respond to Moneywise’s request for comment.

Walmart and Amazon among highest number of employees on federal assistance

Walmart employs 1.6 million people in the U.S. as of the end of its 2026 fiscal year. Amazon is right behind its retail rival at 1.5 million as of the end of 2025, according to its latest annual report.

A new study released by the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that both Amazon and Walmart workers rank in the top three of employees receiving Medicaid and SNAP benefits. In fact, the number of Amazon workers on federal assistance tripled from 2020 to 2025.

In the U.S., there are 23 million households on SNAP benefits. About 67 million people are enrolled in Medicaid as of March 2026.

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“American taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize the starvation wages of large corporations like Walmart and Amazon,” Sanders said in a statement to the Washington Post in its article about the newly-released government data. “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.”

Notably, gig-economy companies like Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, and Instacart — grouped together in the research — are also in the top three of total number of workers receiving federal aid. McDonald’s and Dollar General were additionally named in the U.S. Government Accountability Office’s report. Findings were based on data compiled across 11 states.

Read More: Millionaires under 43 hold only 25% of their wealth in stocks. Here’s where their money is actually going

Sanders’ X post draws both praise and criticism

Amid a barrage of negative responses, some commenters on Sanders’ post praised the Vermont senator, and cited the experiences of people that have worked at Walmart for decades.

“My 70 year old cousin has worked for 20+ years in the deli at Walmart. She can’t even afford to retire but struggles constantly to pay her bills in a full time Walmart income. It’s so sad,” one user wrote.

But then there’s the counter argument to his stance. Public companies answer to investors who may not like moves by owners that aren’t in the interest of increasing profit margins. There’s also the argument that if employees are paid more, those costs would be passed on to the customer.

Many, as some commenters did, will even point to Walmart workers having the option to leave for better paying jobs, if they want to.

While it’s possible, many employees that work at the largest employers in the U.S. do so on a part-time basis. They may want full-time work, but more people find themselves stuck working less than 35-hours a week. Federal Bank of St. Louis data also shows that the number of people working part-time has risen from pre-pandemic levels.

“Certainly part-time work for a fully work-capable person is not going to make ends meet,” Angela Rachidi, a federal safety net expert at the American Enterprise Institute, told WaPo. “That begs the question of why are they not working full-time and are they using benefits to kind of supplement part-time work.”

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This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind.

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Source: “AOL Breaking”