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Walmart employee Janet Sparks claims she's not making a living wage, but insists she's determined to change that. "Across the country, we're all standing together today," she told NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune while holding up a protest sign outside of the big box store.

Sparks and five other Walmart employees, along with local group Walmart Moms and the AFL-CIO protested outside of the Cortana Mall Walmart Wednesday (June 4) as part of a national day of action against the chain store leading up to its annual shareholders' meeting.

Walmart, the world's largest retailer (and America's largest private employer), occupies a rather strange place in the business landscape: a technologically innovative company with a down-home reputation – a low-wage, low-benefit employer that prides itself on a family atmosphere. Walmart masks the lousy working conditions that make its profits with its particular form of market populism: millions of "Walmart moms" can't be wrong for wanting to "save money, live better", can they?

The idea of retirement in the U.S. often conjures up images of fit seniors strolling along the beach, enjoying a leisurely round of golf or perhaps sharing a meal in an exotic locale. For most people, however, the reality is far less glamorous.

Walmart's top brass and its shareholders face a confrontation with their "moms" at the company's annual shareholders meeting Friday in Fayetteville, Ark. That is, the "Walmart Moms" who are demanding higher wages from the nation's biggest employer. The labor union-supported workers' group is demanding a pay increase to $12.25 an hour, or $25,000 a year for full-time work. Organizers said that workers would picket on Wednesday outside stores in cities including Chicago, Miami, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Los Angeles and Tampa.

Women are disproportionately impacted by the low wages and the often erratic work schedules in the retail industry, says a new report.

 (NEW YORK, NY) – In anticipation of the annual Walmart shareholders’ meeting this week, national public policy organization Dēmos has released a 2014 update of previous research detailing how Walmart can afford to give its workers a raise by redirecting the funds spent annually on buying back shares of Walmart’s own company stock.

Even at the mall or a discount store, where women are courted and catered to, they are paid less than men. Women in US retail jobs earn on average $4 an hour less than men, or 72 cents for every dollar men make, according to a new report by Demos, a liberal nonprofit public policy organization. The overall pay gap for women in the US is around 80 cents.

An industry that’s one of the largest employers of women and one of the fastest job creators in the country also has a huge pay gap. The average female retail salesperson makes $10.58 per hour, while her average male colleague makes $14.62, according to a new study from Demos, a think tank focused on income inequality.

In recent days the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department, often working through independent contractors, has started cutting off service to up to 120,000 delinquent citizens, while giving a pass to major corporate laggards. The Great Recession has crushed the people of Detroit, with unemployment rates soaring as high as 35 percent in this period. At the end of 2013, 47 percent of the mortgages were still under water. They simply cannot pay. How could such draconian measures be justified?