>Walmart can pay their workers whatever they wish.

To be more precise, Walmart can pay the lowest possible compensation package that will attract the kind of worker they need to run their stores, and basically that's what they do.

The fact that people are available in ample supply to do work at that compensation level is not Walmart's doing, but Walmart is exploiting that availability.

Walmart could not have existed in its present form during the 1950's, 1960's or 1970's because of stronger labor unions and stronger demand for workers in higher paying jobs.

The steady deterioration of the lower end of the economy makes places like Walmart and Dollar Tree possible, if not actually necessary. Those lines you see contain people who can't afford to shop anyplace else and the people checking them out can't find jobs anyplace else.