As Black Friday approached, the honchos at Walmart, the largest employer in the United States, found themselves at a loss to respond to a nationwide rebellion within the ranks of their near-captive workers -- people who work for an average wage of $8.81 per hour, according to The National Memo

FORTUNE -- Thousands of Wal-Mart employees won't be pushing away from the Thanksgiving meal today to visit with family, watch football, or even clean the dishes. Instead, they'll be heading to work to welcome bargain-hunting shoppers.

A new study released by the progressive think tank Demos on Monday estimated that if retail workers were given a living wage, hundreds of thousands of Americans would be lifted out of poverty and the wage boost would significantly bolster the economy.

This strike follows a cluster of other Walmart strikes across the country over things like unsafe working conditions, sexual harassment, excessive hours, and low pay. Learn more after the jump. Natasha Lennard reports:

More broadly, the widening inequality reflected in the gap between the pay of Walmart workers and the returns to Walmart investors, including the Walton fammily, haunts the American economy.

As planned Black Friday strikes draw increasing media attention, Walmart continues to publicly dismiss the actions as stunts and the workers involved as an unrepresentative fringe. But workers charge that behind closed doors, the company is waging a stepped-up campaign to to intimidate them out of

Will you drive on over to your local Wal-Mart on Black Friday morning, only to find yourself confronted by capitalism's misdeeds, in the form of protesting Wal-Mart workers demanding something approaching a living wage? Here is a list of planned Wal-Mart Black Friday actions around the country.

Walmart is by far the nation's largest retailer, with 2.2 million employees (the next largest is Target with 365,000), and its low wages have set the tone for a nation where the majority of jobs created in the so-called economic recovery pay less than $13.83 per hour.

By 2020, more than one-quarter of U.S. workers will be working low-wage jobs, not making enough money to keep a family of four out of poverty.

With the holiday shopping season fast approaching, Demos has released a new report showing how raising wages in the retail sector would benefit not just workers but the economy as a whole. The study looks at what would happen if the lowest-paid retail employees earned $25,000 a year (the current